Fools Rush In

World Spirit Tarot by Lauren Onça O'Leary

It began with this Fool card from the fabulous, World Spirit Tarot. Musing on the card and its various meanings about innocence, about intrepidness and beginnings and the feeling that there was a kind of sacrilege in not beginning because it denied the gods their due involvement. That idea of denying of the gods stayed with me and continued to resonate. So I decided to do a reading on the subject, felt compelled was more the reality.

Tarot de Marseille by Camion-Jodorowsky 

And this resulting three-card reading had me enthralled. Perhaps it was the nature of my question. Each time I looked at it some new awareness emerged, tangible and intangible both.

I'm digging this Fool's red shoes. Hey now, click them together and there's no place like home. Which he carries on his back, blithe spirit that he is. Hail to thee, says The Empress while his little dog has other pressing matters to attend to. Holding Le Mat back or urging him forwards, it's unclear.

The animal body as guide. Do I trust its instinctual wisdom? Do I experience it as vehicle or impediment? Is that walking stick our Fool carries a support or goad? These are sober, poignant questions because I sense in their answers grief, suffering. What woman doesn't have to come to intimate terms with this collective somatic awakening?

Each of us does, at some point, engage in a kind of reckoning with the body in relation to the culture. More so as we get older as this culture is not kind to women past a certain age. We each come to our own place with it and the phrase, 'let go or be dragged' takes on visceral resonance. Hold on to the external definitions or create your own.

The Empress though, has come to terms with this narrowness of vision. One gets the sense, not that she's above it, but rather that she has traversed its landscape and come out in and as a far more expansive and forgiving vista.

What does all this have to do with my question? Lots and lots because my question, Why do I deny the gods? speaks intangibly to a denial of the body, its needs, its nature, its nurture. And sitting there receiving darshan from The Empress, suddenly I felt a deep shift, tsunami-like, within. My question, Why do I deny the gods?


Because I think I can

God, what an answer. One that came swimming up from the depths because I was patient enough to sit with it, knowing intuitively this 'simple' three-card spread had something vital to tell me. 'Because I think I can'...the wish-fulfilling gem gone awry. Intellectually, spiritually I know this for the hubris it is, the belief in separation it implies.

But emotionally, somatically there is a deep schism. Oy, how to proceed? Start where you are, comes the answer. Start in the midst of your confusion, your hubris, the inner rift. Give it away, don't hold onto it, give it away as a prayer, an offering. Start right there with gentleness, forgiveness and a learning to yield, to accept that the moment is enough, you are enough. Each of us, inside this moment, is complete, whole, enough. No need to deny the moment its due, which is none other than your presence, your attention, your love.

I feel The Fool here, both in the naiveté of my answer and the intrepidness to begin anew. How to respond to the animal wisdom at my back? How to use the staff as support not goad? How to dance with my will? Which, of course, isn't separate from the Beloved's will, ultimately.

Handmaiden of Roses

Mysteries of Mary Tarot by Hettienne Groebler

Today’s draw from the Mysteries of Mary Tarot deck is the Handmaiden of Roses.

Traditionally this is the Page of Pentacles. Here Bernadette Soubirous is portrayed as the Handmaiden. The suits in this deck are based on the cycle of life of the hawthorn tree and by the four stages in Mary’s life; Virgin, Beloved and Bride, Mother, and lastly Mary Sophia, Holy Wisdom

Vessels (Cups) reflects Mary’s life as Virgin, Maiden Mother and Priestess of the Soul. Holy Rood (Wands)reflects Mary as Bride of the Beloved, and the Mystery of the Bride Chamber. Distaff (Swords) depicts the veils of Mary, and Mary behind the veils of existence. Roses reflects the Embodied Mary, the Divine in the manifest, the Gnostic Mary.

I am fascinated by the various strands and personal mythos Hettienne has pulled from and woven into this deck. In today’s card we are shown the spiritual initiate at a particular stage in her archetypal journey of ever-unfolding rose. This journey takes tremendous muscle, commitment, a spacious breath, and a continual attunement to the inner voice.

More and more as I go along I realize it’s not a journey for everyone. And definitely not for the faint of heart. God is only our name for Her and the closer we come to God the more She ceases to be God. In the same way that our ideas about God are limited by our ideas about ourselves.

The Changing Story

Waking into the dark. And there are those few, floating moments of spacious awareness unweighted by the cares and concerns and stories of the previous day. And then awareness-of-self comes flooding back, like a strong body of water surging into my own filling every possible dip and contour with mood and attachment, bias and identification, want and need, weight, gravitas, texture.

The difference between these two states and the moment they collide is dramatic. And this morning the question, who is it who comes rushing back in with what feels like such solidity and completeness? Who might I be without that narrative?

So I got up and holding that question, I moved. In the dark, to the pre-dawn silence, my little dog as witness. And you know, there’s not really an answer to that question, said my bending, swaying, unfolding, gesturing, kneeling, offering body. There is movement and stillness, she said, and you are shaped by that continual exchange. The story is always changing, the breath is always finding its way in, finding its way out.

Feast of the Annunciation

Art by J Kirk Richards

It’s the Feast of the Annunciation today. This potent moment has brought forth art that is compelling, inspiring, laden with mystery, grace, beauty, truth because it’s a living moment, a moment outside of the constricts of time, a moment that happens again and again not only within us, but more intimately *as* us. We’re drawn to what we know. And more potent still, we’re known by what we know.

I’ve written about the Annunciation in the past as the moment Mary confronts the magnificence and inviolate truth of her own creativity. The word, Annunciation, is rooted in the word, announcement, with close ties to the word, enunicate, all of which hold within them the power of voice.

To have direct access to our creative voice, to allow its birth, is to be birthed ourselves. And birth is...well, ask any mother. Birth is like nothing you could ever possibly imagine, a dance of extremes, pain and love, gravity and grace, a place where scream becomes song, where one brushes up against mortality and life, strength and vulnerability in equal parts.

I imagine all of these qualities to be present as Mary comes face to face with the inevitability of her own creative birth. I love this depiction by J Kirk Richards. There’s so much earth and fire here. Mary isn’t wearing the blue cloak we so often see but a brown one. Robed in the earth of her being she kneels. Her mouth is loose, slightly open, relaxed.

In the birth process, a relaxed mouth directly correlates to a relaxed cervix. And when the cervix is ready to allow the mother to begin pushing, she is called, effaced. Effaced, to make oneself inconspicuous, to withdraw. I think it’s no coincidence that effacement is a word to describe self awakening into the Beloved.

But imagine it. A moonless, starless night, a solitary Mary, a rush of wings, a blaze of light, a night-sky washed gold with radiance, an embrace at once fierce and tender, a confusion, a terror, a surrender as the sharp in-drawing of breath, of pneuma, of spirit is received. This is the moment she says Yes, accepts the imperative to create, accepts her soul’s fiat to bring the Beloved forth from the very heart of her being.

Our journey is Hers and she gives us an intimate map of that journey, whispers to us, 'we are each others' unfolding'. In our longing to awaken each of us must confront the fact of our own annunciation, each of us must come face to face with the fact of our own Gabriel, the inevitability of our own Yes. And so the Beloved meets each of us as She finds us bearing the good news that compassion with oneself is the midwife of creativity, that awakening and creativity inter-are. That we are God's love-drenched Yes.

Mysteries of Mary Tarot

Mysteries of Mary Tarot by Hettienne Groebler

After a very long wait this deeply compelling deck, The Mysteries of Mary Tarot, arrived on my birthday. The timing couldn't have been more perfect, absolutely the best day it could have arrived. It felt as if Mother Mary had been waiting for that specific day all along, to give me the gift of Herself, the Mother who births us all. Her arrival made a beautiful day luminous.

Shining with the Tribe

It's been awhile since I've blogged. Most of my input happens on IG which is more of a visual platform than a written one. Not that that deters me lol. This reading however merited a longer post accompanied by my aspiration to back into more regular blogging. My deck choices of late have been focused on the Motherpeace, Shining Tribe, Tarot of the Crone, and the like. This morning's reading came from the Rachel Pollack's Shining Tribe Tarot. And what a potent reading it was. I used a three-card spread created by Rachel Pollack herself.

Shining Tribe Tarot by Rachel Pollack

Spiritual History ~ The Hermit
Spiritual Challenge ~ Two of Birds🦉
Spiritual Gift ~ Nine of Rivers

Rachel defines the Spiritual History position as an archetypal pattern we've been living out to arrive at the present moment. Pulling that Hermit card was right on point. I’m a double Hermit, soul and personality card. I’m a Virgo rising, The Hermit’s ruling sign, and I’m in a Hermit year birth-wise. So to pull it for spiritual history felt utterly accurate. Honestly I have the felt-experience of traveling across lifetimes as this archetype, a mountain range of incarnations. It’s lonely and rich, both.

The Hermit ~ Shining Tribe Tarot

Loving the imagery here, a bird-being joyously ascending a hill holding a staff with a Goddess head carved into it. The sacred feminine both leading and supporting the seeker. And this Hermit’s body is an echo of the Shining Vision glyph (found throughout the deck) as is the landscape on which s/he stands and the blue flower on the hillside. I love this mirroring of earth and body, reiterating the reality that we aren’t separate, that awakening is an interdependence.

In this image the lantern we so commonly see The Hermit holding is to be found on the other side of the fabulous blue door carved into space. Implicit in the invitation to step through its threshold is the recognition and awareness of differing states of consciousness. This recognition contains within it the realization of movement as deeper truths are absorbed and embodied. Of course we are both door and lamp as well as the seeking of them in the same way that this Hermit’s body is a mirror of the landscape s/he travels.

In the position of Spiritual Challenge comes the Two of Birds aka Two of Swords in a traditional deck. The card in this position indicates a challenge or issues to face. I find it so interesting that in the first card a bird-being is the central focus and here in the second card there are two seemingly opposing bird-beings.

Two of Birds ~ Shining Tribe Tarot

There is tension here. It makes me think of what happens when two magnets are put together and they don't stick because they share the same charge. As if neither of these birds can move from their seeming opposition.

The snake wrapped around their ankles joining the two of them seems to hold the key. It feels like the staff in the first card, the feminine wisdom which guides and grounds. If they can access then movement, momentum is possible again. In terms of a spiritual challenge it feels like my relationship to the myth of duality, of a belief in a separate self and how that creates a sense of inner conflict, stasis and stress.

Snake is a totem and seeing her here feels like a vital piece of information. In terms of integration, that kundalini/Shakti energy is key. Snake's teachings on release of old 'skins, on transformation and womb/belly wisdom are a way through to a deeper understanding of and living in alignment with the Beloved within. This is interdependence.

Lastly in the position of Spiritual Gift comes the Nine of Rivers. It's an interesting image for a card normally associated with wish-making and granting and gift-giving, the fairy goddess-mother card is how I sometimes think of it.

Nine of Rivers ~ Shining Tribe Tarot

We see nine pots, eight of which have small cracks in them and liquid flowing out and one large pot  intact and full of a luminous elixir. Rachel describes it as the card of healing, acceptance of responsibility and rebuilding after a loss. There are themes of social awareness and helping out there, and concern to ease the suffering of others. What a powerful card to receive in this position of Spiritual Gift which she describes as the energy that will help with the challenges of the second card.

The dark blue water spilling from each of the eight broken pots brings me back to the dark blue door on the first card. Perhaps by embracing the dark blue cracks in our being, the schism of the Two of Birds, then the door into a more boundless sense of self becomes possible. That Hermit's lamp is waiting just beyond the dark blue door. It's like the ninth jar in this card, shining, luminous and whole.



This has been such a nourishing and surprisingly on point reading done on a whim with the app on my phone and then translated into the actual with my deck. This deck has become one of my top go-tos this year. I like it so much that it merited a special wrap which I knit up this week. Seeing it contained within my own work, a bit of red jasper tucked inside the ties, makes it feel all the more potent.

Five of Swords ~ Instinct and Intellect

Celestial Tarot by Kay Stevenson and Brian Clark

Censor the body and you censor breath and speech at the same time, writes Hélène Cixous in 'The Laugh of the Medusa.'

I've been reflecting on this phrase for a couple of months now. It came up a couple of months back when the Five of Swords was the card for that particular month. This depiction above, from the Celestial Tarot, shows us Pegasus, the divine winged horse, who was born from the severed head of Medusa. Censorship and severed heads have obvious, if visceral, points of intersection. And my subtitle for this card, the inner critic, carries on this theme of the silencing of voice. Medusa, with her hair of writhing snakes, could only be looked at with a mirror so deadening was her gaze. It's an interesting metaphor, reflection as a way in, the use of mirror, of indirect gaze as a tool for awakening.

Cioux writes in such a way as to leave the reader with questions as to the verity of this dark goddess's maligned nature. Censorship as the patriarchal silencing of feminine instinct, of kundalini energy, of uterine power. Not only does she draw a correlation between body and voice, implicit in her writing is the reality that body IS voice.

The Swords align with both communication and conflict. They represent the element of Air, the medium by which our spoken words are carried. Astrologically the Air trinity includes Gemini, Libra and Aquarius, each looking for its other half through relationship's mirror. One might look at the suit of Swords as the Earth longing to become aware, as a depiction of the seeming conflict between instinct and intellect.

Holding Cioux words in my awareness I lie down on the kitchen floor. The house is empty but for myself, the dogs and bird. I can see my limbs, breasts, belly, can sense sinew, muscle...all arranged on the worn wood surface, its uneven architecture lined up beneath me. Each pale strip holds stories, hollow and spacious like birds' bones, a poetics of emptiness. Feeling into the experience of censorship, of somatic censorship, that Cixous writes of here. Trying to find words for the flesh of the moment. And I realize that my throat is not big enough for this language that wants a skin.

Embodiment is a paradox. It’s a pilgrimage that ends ultimately in loss. There is no resolution in its mutable dialectic. Descending into the body is to grasp at the pages of transience while at the same time touching the limit of form. This tension mirrors the tension in all the Fives.