The Blooming of One Flower

This week I'll be using the Hudes Tarot created by Susan Hudes and published by US Games combined with Psycards created by Maggie Kneen and Nick Hobson also published by US Games. Psycards are a set of forty cards inspired by the work of Carl Jung.

Prison ~ Psycards

When I showed this card to my husband his cheeky response was along the lines of, 'hmm, looks like some housecleaning is in store for you today' lol. It's true that the house does need attention and it's true that I often feel this work as, if not a prison, then as a sense of constriction at the very least. The LWB suggests, 'The first thing the Prison card asks us to do is examine our lives and see where it is that we're constricted. The second instruction is to examine how we got there.' Coming off a week of expansion and connection from the retreat I could easily feel the day-to-day work in front me as a restrictive but I'm more interested in who's below the sense of inner contraction I sometimes feel when looking at a day of seemingly mundane but necessary activities. Who is it that feels the limit of prosaic work?

Being away for ten days and steeped in an atmosphere of heart and meditation, sacred dance, connection and the natural world has given me just a little bit more space to see the nature of my earth-plane work as an integral part of the deeper alchemy the soul is involved in for the simple reason that the earth involves the body and the body is the palace that is refuge to the soul. If my body can relax into the tasks in front of me then the soul becomes intimately involved and transformation deepens on both levels. This short poem by Rilke from the Eighth Duino Elegy entitled, The Blooming of One Flower, sums it up beautifully...

Never, not for a single day, do we let
the space before us be so unbounded
that the blooming of one flower is forever.

With that possibility of each breath being an opportunity for a kind of co-creation of body, soul and moment into boundlessness I asked the Tarot cards what areas today needed the lens of expansion, needed a softening of restriction.

Temperance ~ Seven of Pentacles ~ Hudes Tarot

The healing angel and 'soul regeneration' come together here to light the way, both speaking of timing, rhythm, measure and sacred pause. Temperance is ruled by Sagittarius and looking at the two cards together I definitely feel a sense of appropriate timing, knowing just when to let loose one's intention. Healing that is nourished by  perspective and cultivation was the immediate thought that came to mind seeing these two cards together.

Temperance asks of us qualities of presence, of balance, literally tempering, an awareness of the part to the whole. The Angel is a balance point between the divine and the human realms, between sacred time and historical time. Her wings suggest healing involves transition between realms and her beauty implies this quality is a gift that will be instrumental in the process, divine beauty being brought into earthly manifestation.




A great Sufi saint once said, Power forces surrender, beauty inspires it. And what is healing but the body saying yes, kneeling to receive the opening flower of the moment. 

Temperance ~ Hudes Tarot

This lovely depiction of Temperance shows a beautiful angel bending over a clear pool of water adding her part (the liquid in the cup) to the whole (the pool). Seeing her reflection in the surface of the water I imagine her recognizing the part she plays in healing, her place within the balance of things. I'm asked to do the same here, as well as to look to any areas that feel out of balance in relation to a felt sense of equilibrium which is a key component of healing.

In the background we see a sun rising, another nod to the midpoint between extremes, neither full daylight nor dark of night, this scene takes place somewhere in between. The tree in the background speaks of life force and being able to dance and bend with the winds of change. There is something both expansive and intimate about this angel, her gaze is full of tenderness and presence, her wings strong and encompassing. She is earthy and otherworldly at the same time and has a feeling of immediacy that makes her accessible to me.

This card is sometimes called Art which I find intriguing, pointing as it does, to the redemptive power art has in our lives. It brings up images of mixing color and different materials to create something of beauty, something of meaning, something that speaks to the soul in a transformational way. Healing requires us to draw upon many areas of our lives, including the unconscious material suggested by the water, on memory and dream, self-reflection seen in the pool, the widening of awareness seen in the rings and their effects on the whole all the while allowing the flow between these to shape new possibilities, new worlds within and without. We are the midpoint that leans in, the still point between the breath.

Seven of Pentacles ~ Hudes Tarot

The card of soul regeneration, the Seven of Pentacles, belongs to the suit that deals with manifestation, physicality and the material world, our resources. If Wands represent the energy of our work, Pentacles represent the product of our work. Which brings me nicely, ahem, back to the task at hand, the mundane, earthly tasks being asked of me today.

I feel much like the fellow in this card, resting my chin on my hoe, which is to say, resting my attention on the tools of transformation. I feel a kinesthetic sense in my body when I experience the weight of his leaning, he's bringing his whole body to bear on that hoe, head and hands meeting together to form a solid interface at the heart with the handle of the hoe stretching downwards into the element being worked and transformed. He's reminding me that the roots of contemplation, of regeneration must be well established before such reflection upon one's labors can arise.

This is a card of evaluation and taking stock. The rich yellow color of his clothing and the abundant greenery also indicate his position is a potent one filled with the positivity of the sun and the fertility and abundance of the earth with the sky of perspective behind him if he's willing to look. His many Pentacles tell us he's a hard worker, a skilled worker. And when the two cards are taken together he seems to be looking to the healing angel with a quiet curiosity as if navigating his own place within the healing spectrum. And what of my own garden, how have I tended it, where does it need work, where does it need attention and care?

Hudes Tarot ~ Psycards

All three together feel like an invitation to frame the self that feels restricted with a different lens, one that suggests that healing might come in the form of taking stock, of noticing how plodding, mundane work actually serves a wider more exalted vision to do with the regeneration of the soul which lives so gratefully in our bodies. I feel I'm being asked to begin as Rilke suggests, by letting...

the space before us be so unbounded
that the blooming of one flower is forever.