Miracle Signs

Here are the Miracle Signs

Here are the miracle-signs you want,
that you cry through the night
and get up at dawn asking,
that in the absence of what you ask for,

your day gets dark, your neck thin
as a spindle, that what you give away
is all you own, that you sacrifice belongings,
sleep, health, your head,

that you often sit down in a fire like
aloeswood
and often go out to meet a blade
like a battered helmet.

When acts of helplessness become habitual,
those are the signs.

Excuse my wandering.
How can one be orderly with this?
It is like counting leaves in a garden,
along with the song-notes of partridges
and crows. Sometimes organization
and computation become absurd.

* ~ * ~ *

This poem for the day of Rumi's evokes in me a mixed reaction. I like my sleep, my health, my head and a lot of my belongings. Which is to say, I like to rise after a good night to a hot drink, to feel the warm mug in my hands and watch the sigils of steam as they rise in the air offering their own prayers and incantations to the invisible but prescient realms that rest like soft clouds around my still awaking self. With a foot in both worlds, I stagger from one dream to the next. The thought of crying out all night and rising at dawn as a long, calligraphy of longing doesn't call to me in the same way it did in my twenties. And yet...the teaching is of surrender here, of immersion in the blaze of the faceless, meanwhile"your neck thin as a spindle", how poignant and vulnerable this feels. I'm not sure where to locate this poem in my body, it feels like a half-remembered conversation between lovers and that's where I'll leave it for now.

With those compelling miracle-signs in mind I drew my Karma Angel for the day...Nathaniel, the Angel of Fire, of Energy, of Purification. He is associated with the opening of the heart chakra. A construct if I ever heard one. Aren't all our inner angels ultimately working to that end? Still, the dance of fire and heart has a sympathetic feel to it and the sumptuous use of red on this card is compelling. So placing a fiery opalite beside this fiery angel I shall run with this association....

"Nathaniel encourages us to maintain a strong belief and faith in our dreams and aspirations so that he is able to help us to manifest them into our lives. Nathaniel’s fiery energy awakens our passions and desires, and encourages and motivates us to manifest our intentions. Archangel Nathaniel helps you to ignite the energy and passion within you and helps to fan the fire that dwells within to seek to transform it into something uplifting and wonderful. Nathaniel helps us to wake up to our own true power.

Archangel Nathaniel resonates with the element and energies of fire, which are purification, transformation, transcendence, prosperity, protection, cleansing, motivation, passion and enthusiasm. Archangel Nathaniel transfers the Divine energy of fire to our world where it is transformed and used to burn away misconceptions and our feelings of separation. Archangel Nathaniel instigates change on many levels and helps to overcome procrastination and assists with accepting change with grace. He helps you to accomplish more than you thought you could and imbues energy, enthusiasm and passion."

In this card we see Nathaniel sitting on a pillar of cloud or smoke high above a group of four people, three men and one woman. He holds in his right, active hand a central string from which four separate strings emanate, each attached to one of the figures. Presumably he is controlling the movements of the figures below and because his hand is in the blessing mudra one can assume his actions are of great benefit to them. They are in a circle, dancing together, going round and round, having to cooperate with each other. And in fact that is the 'challenge' posted for this card, that of knowing when to work with others. Here we see the element of friction/fire being used to burn away the feeling of separation as the figures are being pulled together whether they like it or not out of necessity of a "higher ideal" to use a cliched term that I like to replace with a "wider ideal". So with this feeling of working together in mind as well as the ideas of purification and manifesting dreams and aspirations I drew the Seven of Swords and the Six of Swords.

In many ways these feel like perfect cards to bring into the light of Nathaniel's healing presence. The Seven of Swords is deeply a card of the pain of separation.

 Here we see a figure cloaked in cream with a red hat and red stockings. This combination and placement of colors brings to mind for the me the idea of concealment fueled by the will and the vehicle. He holds five swords in his hands with two more resting in the ground. His load is heavy. His gaze is guilty-looking, sneaky and full of deception. But looking further into those eyes and with the presence of Nathaniel in my heart what I see is something very different. I see someone who feels so separate from love and life that the only way they know how to go about getting some of it is to steal from others who appear to have that very quality. In the hopes that by taking their possessions he will possess some of their connection. It is dark, a nighttime sky setting the scene for this drama, a time when the shadow blends thoroughly into its environment.




The second card I drew is one of my favorite cards in any deck, the Six of Swords. I love this card with its mysterious suggestions of travel, of departure, of watery passage and the protective embrace of the mother. This card is no exception and it hits all my requirements for a good Six of Swords.

 The mood is sober but loving. Sometimes I'm the child in this card, sometimes I'm the mother, occasionally I'm the steersman and once in a while I'm the boat or waters. Today I'm the mother and the figure in the Seven has become the little baby. The mother's dark blue cloak is gathered around her body which is pleated in the mudra of tenderness and warmth around her little child. We don't see the traditional refuge of a far-off island or shore in this card though there is the hint of shoreline at the bottom right. There is the sense of a journey here, of change and transformation out of necessity. The boatman rows and keeps an eye on his passengers while farther off two fishermen work for their catch on a boat suggesting nourishment and rebirth are to be found in the waters they travel.






Is Nathaniel the boat here? His body made buoyant, crafted perfectly into a slim, wooden vehicle for the mother in me to tend to that aspect of myself who feels its separation keenly and calls out, sometimes skillfully and other times unknowingly in the form of envy, of greed, two of the more difficult children to love. Today this combination of cards feels like a doorway. My hand upon the key, I turn it, feeling the strength necessary to engage it and as it clicks open and I step through suddenly I realize that not only am I the doorway, the opening, the yielding, but more deeply felt...I am, in the words of Rumi, the miracle signs I want...