Just Add Water

Strength ~ The Alchemist's Oracle

What a gloriously affirming card to begin the day with. His mane is a many-petaled lotus, he is alive with internal flame. His expression is both sober and fierce, receptive and forceful. The wooden figure is one of many Ostheimer figures I collected when my son was younger.  He used them for his imaginative games and they sat on our nature tables throughout the seasons presided over by various felted nature goddesses. Beautifully made, they now grace my Tarot altars. This lion in particular echoes the affinity I have for the Strength card in the Tarot, one of my favorite and go-to Majors with any new deck. As such Rousseau's 'Sleeping Gypsy' remains, after decades, one of my favorite paintings traveling with me from home to home...

The Sleeping Gypsy ~ Henri Rousseau

Lions bring me such somatic suggestions of haunches and mane, roar and muscle. I dream of them often. I have spent many an hour watching the light shift across this canvas sometimes highlighting the moon, sometimes the gypsy's delicate toenails or teeth, sometimes the lion's eye, the soft colors in the gypsy's dress, the ebon depth of her limbs, her magical lute, the lion's animated, dynamic tail...it is most magical at dusk as the light moves from the manifest to the liminal carrying me along with it.

Alchemist's Oracle

The LWB tells me that I no longer need support from those whom I sought it before. I disregard this in the name of interdependence and instead feel a visceral strength in acknowledging that support from others is not only inescapable but an enriching component of what it is to be human. Being a fairly 'independent' soul I could probably reach out more often than I do. There is strength in naming and claiming the part of me that does 'get by with a little help from my friends.' And this lion, looking at us head on, affirms that. His gaze is a blend of beckoning, protective and unapologetic, such a compelling triumvirate of qualities. A balance of knowing when to yield and when to act.


Reaching for my Tarot cards I was feeling into areas of the day where strength might be needed but also areas where I am already strong but may not realize it. And then, as such trajectories often go for me, the question arose, well, what is strong anyway? If it's muscular then surely I must take into account the fact that the heart is first and foremost a muscle. If it's force then will enters into the picture. If, as the picture above suggests, it's something that flowers outward, its nexus a core of warmth, solidity and intention, then the sense of limit around its meaning loosens significantly. All these ideas bobbed around on the surface of my mind as I shuffled and appreciated the wonderfully, silky card stock of the Wild Unknown Tarot...

Ace of Cups ~ Seven of Pentacles

My eye softens into the blues and teals in this Ace of Cups, the golden light spilling out the top and then as my gaze shifts towards the starkness of the Seven of Pentacles it straightens up a bit into a more linear trajectory upon seeing the disks all lined up in what feels like an endlessness. If Cups are the ways we work with the emotional flow and mutability in our lives then Pentacles step in to earth the psyche.

My initial reaction is to want to pour the contents from the Ace onto the Seven and see what magic might transpire. Kind of like those exotic sea monkey kits that used to be sold in the back of comic books. They always fascinated me with their minute and anthropomorphized world of underwater royalty and intrigue...Just add Water! It was a very appealing idea and so it is here, to add water, feeling and flow to the effort and diligence and reflection that I sense the Seven of Pents is asking of me.

Ace of Cups ~ Wild Unknown Tarot

The Ace of Cups, gift of emotional expression as yet to manifest. Whenever I encounter Aces in a reading I have an image of being given a beautifully wrapped package inside of which is the seed of the suit. What I choose to do with it depends on what other cards are present in the reading.

In isolation this Ace is a blessing on the emotional body, an invitation to explore the realm of feelings and emotions and how they might facilitate the expression of spiritual ideals in our day to day lives. I see this depicted here in the progression from blue to gold. It can stimulate the unconscious, eliciting new ways of responding with joy, with spirit, with heart. It is a cup so, for me, the suggestion of a womb, of the archetypal feminine is appropriate here, too. With this in mind there is a sense of birthing creative possibility, a resonant card for artists and creators.

Seven of Pentacles ~ Wild Unknown Tarot

"And she's buying a stairway to heaven", that old Led Zeppelin song is what sprung unconsciously to mind upon seeing this card with all those pentacles leading heavenward. Though they could just as easily be leading earthwards depending on one's mood or inclination. And there's just as much merit in bringing something from heaven to earth as there is in bringing something from earth to heaven. Breathing in I embody heaven, breathing out I earth it. What lies between is the infinite potential of a cosmos.

One thing that intrigues me with this Seven of Pentacles is the horizontal and vertical lines that meet up at each pentacle. This suggests a sense of assimilating the inspiration that has fueled the work together with the effort it required of us. There is a feeling of containment here, of pausing and looking at how beautifully all those pentacles are lined up. It feels solid with weight and worth, the way a gold coin might feel in the palm. Traditionally we see a man leaning on a hoe looking at his hard work and contemplating what might come next. Pentacles are piled up on a bush showing how far he's come but there is still more work for him to do. So, too, here there is a feeling of stasis, of rest to contemplate and assess the pattern and its direction. Will my regeneration draw from the earth, from more work with the task or from the heavens, from inspiration? What do I need to do to see things through to the other side? Do my goals need readjusting?

Wild Unknown Tarot ~ Alchemist's Oracle

So how am I tending to the garden of my soul? Seeing all three of these cards together my initial impression of using the waters of life in the Ace of Cups to moisten the receptive earth of the Seven of Pentacles feels spot on. The flowering lotus head of the lion in the Strength card suggests a kind of fruition that could have ever-widening effect. Looking ahead to projects that I have in the works and I can think of one in particular, teaching a Tarot course later in the summer with my husband, in which this quality of Ace of Cups energy could have quite an enlivening effect on the stricture of expectation and responsibility that comes with the gift of such a job.

Meanwhile rain falls, the earthworm endures,
articulating his own loamy beloved in endless
ecstatic slither. His dance is no less mine,
the witnesses similar and sacred--

blood, breath, water.

Nor is the distance between the unseen
star and the nameable skin of this earth
different than that between one breath
and the next. It's space all the same,

the shape of which is
a profound generosity
that is always at work
preceding grace 
and reflecting it.

~ RM ~