Plus Little Fingers of Light

The day is unfolding quickly already with breakfast finished and my son practicing his tabla in the next room, the rhythmic pattern of skin-shaped sounds a steady backdrop to my own beating heart. I'm in one of those slow-to-get-started moods. A mug of coffee sits beside me, its stained rim already telling stories of gradations of pleasure swallowed. Earlier before anyone else was up I drew my cards for the day accompanied by my little canine familiar who sat witness to the imagery unfolding on my altar. From the Winged Enchantment Oracle I have drawn Finch as the wings needed for my heart today...

 

I spent some time listening to these little winged angels singing their hearts out. Here and here. Their sound is quick and pretty much like they are. The LWB tells us...

I am Finch, the diversity of experience. I am a million facets of reality. I am an eternal spectrum of color. I exist in myriad ways and bring the magic of alternatives. 

Of course the same could be said for any of us which I thank Finch for reminding me of. The description goes on and ends with this little poem...

                                                 You are abundant in curiosity.
                                                      You are active change.
                                                 You are blending experience.
                                                             You are Finch.

So with the themes of curiosity and change in mind I draw my two Tarot cards for the day, Condor and Dolphin, the Eight of Swords and Seven of Cups respectively...

 Another interesting polarity offering itself to my contemplation today, the dance between restrictive stasis and expansive stasis might be one possible a way to describe it. In Condor, the Eight of Swords, we see three condors surveying a scene with swords and rocks. Two condors hover above as though searching for something and another one perches atop a large rock inscribed with various sigils and a single sword stuck into the stone. In the distance seven other swords stand in the ground presumably abandoned and left to rust indefinitely. The sky is hazy and there is a mountain in the distance suggesting a possible move to higher ground, to clearer thinking if perhaps the sigils could be understood, if the sword could be removed from the stone (arthurian intimations arise here).

When this card comes up for me I can usually point to a few areas in my life where I feel it at play. Although eights can be a number of balance, and renewal of energy they can also be about choice. What are my priorities, where do I need to deepen? Traditionally in the RWS version we see a woman blindfolded and bound from waist up surrounded by a circle of swords. There is the very clear suggestion that she can leave of her own choosing but she has yet to recognize that. She's been hood-winked by her own self-deceptions. That element is less obvious here but the circling condors do convey a sense of endless repetition, of thoughts spinning around and around keeping everything in place. The antidote for that kind of circular trajectory is action. And as I look at my day I decide to tackle a few things on my to-do list that are outstanding.

With this feeling of action in my mind I look to the second card, Dolphin, the Seven of Cups. I drew this last week and wrote about it here. The same feelings seem to apply here. We see two dolphins  diving down to the ocean's floor which is covered in rocks. Behind them stream a flow of luminous bubbles that look like stars and around them seven cups float. None of the cups are being investigated which is odd for such curious creatures, do they feel overwhelmed by the number of cups, unsure of what to do with them? There is a fair bit of movement in this card as indicated by the ripples surrounding the cups and the dolphins themselves but the movement seems to lack focus. Pulling these three cards together...

 I feel a sense of three rivers arriving at the mouth of an ocean. We've got the feathered winds of change, we've got restrictive stasis and restrictive expansion. I sense that perhaps with the imperative set by Finch with her themes of diversity and curiosity I'm being asked to bring the expansion of the Seven to the restriction of Eight and conversely to bring some of the limit and boundary in Condor to Dolphin. A dance of opposites. Feeling into how I might do this and what it might look like I think over my day...mothering duties involve more driving to music classes, partnering duties involve a birthday party tonight with various musical and poetic offerings. Asking for direction on how best to implement the gifts given me above I pull a card from my Spirit Messages oracle...

Cleanse! Aah, this feels like a concrete and do-able approach. The cleansing of conscious breathing, of allowing joy to flow, of feeling the river of the body moving along in the direction of interest, of passion, of gratitude. Mary Oliver sums the cards up beatuifully...

Goldfinches

In the fields
we let them have--
in the fields
we don’t want yet-

where thistles rise
out of the marshlands of spring, and spring open-
each bud
a settlement of riches-

a coin of reddish fire-
the finches
wait for midsummer,
for the long days,

for the brass heat,
for the seeds to begin to form in the hardening thistles,
dazzling as the teeth of mice,
but black,

filling the face of every flower.
Then they drop from the sky.
A buttery gold,
they swing on the thistles, they gather

the silvery down, they carry it
in their finchy beaks
to the edges of the fields,
to the trees,

as though their minds were on fire
with the flower of one perfect idea-
and there they build their nests
and lay their pale-blue eggs,

every year,
and every year
the hatchlings wake in the swaying branches,
in the silver baskets,

and love the world.
Is it necessary to say any more?
Have you heard them singing in the wind, above the final fields?
Have you ever been so happy in your life?