And There Was A New Voice

Cacoxenite ~ New Beginnings ~ Crystal Reading Cards

We'll soon be on our way to the workshop and some visiting with friends along the way. Seeing this card appear this morning I felt its synchrony with the outer details of my life. I've not come across this crystal before and the LWB tells me it appears in variations of golds, browns and blacks and that it relates to the solar plexus and crown chakras. Whatever I might think about the latter it certainly feels relevant as those are internal energy centers I'll need to breathe from as I navigate this workshop--the intuitive and expansive crown center which allows me to touch into and draw from Spirit and the sunny, positive alchemical influences of the solar plexus which can help me digest the material transforming it into offerings to be shared. That this is framed within the lens of "New Beginnings" drives the point home. This is definitely a new incarnation for me, sharing Tarot material with 150 or so folks.

Cacoxenite ~ New Beginnings ~ Crystal Vision Cards

The LWB goes on to affirm that...As the old drops away, you may be feeling a range of different emotions such as fear, joy, excitement, anticipation and even a little sadness as you enter into this renewed time of transformation. Work closely with the Devas of Cacoxenite to release any unwanted fears or resistance and trust this is a sacred time of bringing new energy into your life.

Seeing all that affirming positivity makes me realize that I am still carrying an undercurrent of fear and ambivalence that I'm not up to the task. Perhaps I can lay that burden down for the moment and take this card's message at face value as best as I am able. The phrase 'trust this is a sacred time' helps to reframe the whole experience for me as less about an outer manifestation and more about a personal, inner experience. That makes the journey feel resonant and limitless.

Four of Swords ~ The Moon ~ Crystal Visions Taro

This lovely pair feels like a direct invitation to sink into a more intuitive state, to rest in the power of dream and intuition and let the mental constructs and worries fall away. Seeing them here following on the heels of New Beginnings is encouraging and my breath feels a little more expansive with their permission to feel my way through rather than think my way through.

The figure in the Four of Swords has her arms held tightly around her, the Moon goddess has arms open and receptive. This closing~opening movement feels just about right. I identify with both these body mudras in relation to the workshop. And I'm thinking I'll spend some time today simply allowing my arms and breath to contract and expand as I hold these two images in my mind.

Four of Swords ~ Crystal Visions Tarot

Here she lies, this Four of Swords maiden, giving her mental anguish a rest, taking some time to retreat and renew and yet she still holds on quite tightly to one sword with her right, active hand suggesting to me that her rest is not entirely that of complete surrender. I'm reminded to look to the hidden areas where I haven't relinquished the need to hold onto worn-out views, where my small self is still defending itself, for a sword is a weapon afterall. This woman is surrounded by clouds as she sleeps, blood-red petals spilling from the swords themselves mirroring her red dress, the color of will, of passion, of heat and action. So despite her rest there is alchemy occurring here, a lot of inner movement as thoughts shift, transform, dissolve and evaporate.

I, too, can rest when needed, can allow my own worries and anxiety a little break, allow them the opportunity to breathe a little.

The Moon ~ Crystal Visions Tarot by Jennifer Galasso

And what a supportive place to rest, to breathe and reorient to, The Moon, source of dreams, intution, the unconscious, soft lunar light requiring us to feel our way along the places where it's shadowy unlike yesterday's Sun where all is shiny and manifest.

The Moon beckons me to feel below the surface, to be aware of my subconscious and how that inner voice might sound. The two wolves flanking this lunar Goddess are encouragement to me to rely on my instinct. She reflects light rather than shining it directly and she stands before a liminal portal, doorway to the subconscious beneath which all the phases of the moon shine reminding me that my emotions, too, wax and wane, that they are changeable as am I, that nothing is static, written in stone. The field of moon flowers make me think of our dreams as night-blooming flowers waiting for us to bend and tend to them as soon as we give ourselves over to the night, to the dark, to the mystery.

Crystal Visions Tarot ~ Crystal Reading Cards

Looking at these three together and I arrive back at my original impulse, to begin my journey with the contradiction of rest and retreat in the receiving arms of the moon, which is to say allowing my mind to roam free of the need to pin things down, of the need to know and instead to feel my way, to draw inspiration from my dreams and intuition with the realization that all first steps and new beginnings, all dreams are seeded and start in the heart. On a practical level I shall make sure to create some space for solo time this week, to withdraw a little and rest and drift on the wings of dreams, inspiration and more.

I won't be posting for a bit but I'm wishing all of you a fruitful week full of your own new beginnings replete with time out and inspiration and the daring to dream widely and deeply. This excerpt from Mary Oliver's poem, The Journey, says it so eloquently...

But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do—
determined to save
the only life you could save.

Like a Red Flower Streaming

Rose Quartz ~ Inner Child ~ Crystal Reading Cards

Apparently the lessons of yesterday's Six of Cups ~ Self-Love ~ Queen of Swords triumvirate have wandered over to the present moment of today. Which feels kind of nourishing, actually, once I get past the ubiquitous intellectual cynic standing sentry at the doorway of my heart. Today I'm admitted into that palace with relative ease. Perhaps it's my amusement over the fact that of all the cards I could choose this is one sure to evoke a reaction in me lol. Humor can have such a disarming effect! The universe is having a bit of fun with Rose today ;) Okay, I'll play along since play comes naturally to all children, inner or outer.

Actually this is quite a topical card for today as I am revisiting, with a friend, some of those undeveloped areas that are in need of attention. I feel affirmed to see it here. And rose quartz is just plain lovely quite apart from any meaning it's been given. The LWB tells me...The inner child is a reflection of the child-like feelings and emotions that we have within that have been misunderstood and wounded...The Devas encourage you to reconnect to the magic and innocence of the child within and open to this aspect of yourself in your daily life. Breathe the soft, nurturing energy of Rose Quartz into your heart and feel it dissolve any old wounds connected to your inner child. 

Would that it were that one-dimensionally easy! But I can make a start at least and I place the card upon my heart simply feeling my breath moving in and out of my body as I hold the image of Rose Quartz in my mind. Spontaneity and joy, I could use more of, certainly and I was recently writing about this to a friend so seeing the word here in relation to inner child is an encouraging key as to why spontaneity feels at an ebb these days.

The Sun ~ Crystal Visions Tarot by Jennifer Galasso

What a lovely feeling to move from Inner Child to The Sun! And this Sun seems particularly relevant as the mother cradles her child beneath warm golden skies. Not an entirely traditional version and yet it's got all the elements in it that make a wonderful Sun card.

A mother stands dressed in colors of the sun tenderly holding her child in a field full of sunflowers whose faces shine with solar light. A wild colt looks on with playfulness and yet intimating the power and speed it will eventually embody. Monarch butterflies flutter around aspiring towards the light. The mother introduces her young child to the beauty of the natural world and one can only imagine the shared delight that this introduction evokes in both as she, too, is brought into a newness of vision through the eyes of her child full of innocence and wonder.

I like the feeling of connection that is present with all the figures in this card, human, animal, insect, plant. There is a feeling of outer mirroring inner. The sunflowers speak of the union between earth and sun, body and spirit and the flame of the mother's dress is like a lovely beacon of light leading up to the center of things, her baby cradled against her heart, the new consciousness that can develop when we allow the light to permeate the heart. All these feel palpably relevant in relation to working with my own nascent and undeveloped creatures within.

The High Priestess ~ Crystal Visions Tarot

And who better to guide me through this than the Queen of the liminal herself, The High Priestess. She calls to that part of us that stands at the portal of the mystery and the manifest calling forth from us an intuitive wisdom that simultaneously belies convention and reaches beyond it.

Here she stands upon a crescent moon, her feet firmly rooted in the realm of psychic, intuitive mastery. She holds an ankh scepter topped with a luminous globe in her left hand and in her right hand she holds a pomegranate.

The pomegranate is interesting to me as it relates to both the Inner Child card and the Sun card. In the Greek myth Persephone was abducted by Zeus and taken to Hades' Underworld. Her mother, Demeter, after roaming the earth looking for her finally appealed to the Sun god, Helios, to tell her Persephone's whereabouts which he did. Demeter, goddess of the harvest, then refused to let the crops grow until her daughter was returned to her. Seeing this Zeus finally relented and Hades permitted her to leave. The catch was that she could not have consumed anything during her time in the Underworld. Unfortunately she'd eaten six pomegranate seeds. As a result she was only allowed back to earth with the proviso that she spend three months below each year, the months of Winter when nothing grows.

Crystal Visions Tarot ~ Crystal Reading Cards

I normally don't focus on this myth so intently when The High Priestess card comes up for me but today it seems relevant in relation to the other two cards drawn. Persephone with her ability to navigate inner and outer realms is much like that part of me that can move between inner child and outer mother. With my own intuitive body engaged I can navigate some of this potentially treacherous and vulernable terrain where the inner child lives and plays. The butterflies in both of the Tarot cards speak of degrees of transformation and I feel them as migrating from the solar re-birth energy to quieter lunar metamorphic energy. Helios, embodied by the Sun card plays a role here, too, encouraging me to shine and be warmed by a somatic truth that emerges when the inner child steps out from the less visible realms beneath and lets limbs and breath expand with spontaneity and curiosity. I feel in good company with these cards, supported in my vision to 'play' a little today, to tend to the little one within. And I have made the aspiration to embrace at least one spontaneous impulse today. I wonder what it will be...

The Sun

Have you ever seen
anything
in your life
more wonderful

than the way the sun,
every evening,
relaxed and easy,
floats toward the horizon

and into the clouds or the hills,
or the rumpled sea,
and is gone–
and how it slides again

out of the blackness,
every morning,
on the other side of the world,
like a red flower

streaming upward on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early summer,
at its perfect imperial distance–
and have you ever felt for anything
such wild love–
do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure

that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you

as you stand there,
empty-handed–
or have you too
turned from this world–

or have you too
gone crazy
for power,
for things?

~ Mary Oliver ~

Maiden ~ Mother ~ Crone

Kunzite ~ Self-Love ~ Crystal Reading Cards

I have to own up to a little inward groan that arose when I saw this card. The skeptical cynic in me was rather keen to dismiss this popular new-agey adage. And the buddhist in me joined in with choruses of 'there is no self, there is no self, hi ho the dario there is no self'. Ahem! Rather telling, I think, to have to wade through all that to get to a place of, if not receptivity then at the very least neutrality towards this suggestion. I do resist these kind of blanket statements that seem to miss various integral subtleties and yet...I shall allow this pebble to drop into the still pool of my no-self and see where the widening circles take me.

The related chakra is the heart, naturally, and the LWB tells me that 'Kunzite offers the blessing of unconditional love at its purest...this potent medicine teaches a new way of loving unconditionally.' Is that even possible while still subject to the very real conditions of a body, of the physical realm with all its trajectories and structures in place, its gods of time and space? Some phrases about the crystal's meaning...

~ Connects you to your own infinite source of love
~ Allows the heart to expand and flow giving and receiving 
~ Promotes healing from abandonment and rejection
~ Opens and aligns the heart chakra to divine love
~ Assists in dissolving deeply held pain and resentment

While these claims feel dubious they do present me with an opportunity to look and see where these particular themes come up in my life, to open to possibilities that might be asking for a voice here. It's good to be reminded of inner work still to be done where matters of the heart are concerned particularly as they relate to one's own ability to navigate the world in a way that is yielding, open, transparent. These are ongoing aspirations of my own and I acquiesce when I read the suggestion to place the card on my heart center and breathe in the 'powerful medicine of love'. As I do so I'm aware of my ribcage expanding and contracting as though Love were the wings a magnificent bird opening and closing my bones, breath, sinew with grace and incredible generosity. And this without my even asking!

Six of Cups ~ Queen of Swords ~ Crystal Visions Tarot

In many ways this pair of cards sums up the places I need to focus on with regards to the suggestions in the oracle card, the vulnerable child within and the steely, focused woman without, Six of Cups and Queen of Swords respectively.

Looking at the figures in these cards I feel as though they are all involved in some kind of dialogue together though some of it feels silent perhaps even unconscious. I see the three faces of the Goddess here, too, the Maiden as the the little child, the Mother as her guardian or perhaps even her actual mother, and the Crone as the Queen of Swords, typically represented as a mature woman. All three of these archetypes are an active part of my experience as I wade through the, for me, murky and ambiguous waters of self-love suggested represented by Kunzite in the oracle card

Six of Cups ~ Crystal Visions Tarot by Jennifer Galasso

This is such a sweet version of this card, traditionally the card of nostalgia and sentimentality to do with childhood and memories of times past. The moon appears in every card in this suit in various forms and stages and here it appears in its waning crescent form, traditionally associated with the Crone aspect of the Goddess, as though this lunar grandmother is looking down upon her younger selves very much in accord with this card's symbology.

I'm most drawn to the little girl who allows me to feel into those young, upolished places within that want mothering, that remember times when mothering came from an outside source rather than the inner refuge it is becoming as I age. The older figure in the card is emerging from the water, from the unconscious or the past, to continue on her journey and yet she looks back seeing the small girl she once was. There is a look of nostalgia on her face as though she briefly longs to return to that less individuated state. But instead she reaches back to receive the sixth luminous cup from her little charge, a transmission that allows her step forwards into the unknown with her roots and lineage supporting her. The lilies, the liminal sky, the bullrushes and water all suggest transformation and movement is possible if awareness is brought to this desire for simpler times, for nostalgia and sweet youth.

Queen of Swords ~ Crystal Visions Tarot ~ Jennifer Galasso

Presumably the young woman in the Six of Cups has matured now into this masterful Queen of Swords. Unlike the emotional feeling in the Six of Cups this Queen rules with her head though not without compassion and keen perceptive abilities. Her sword gleams like a beacon of truth, she appears on a pillow of clouds, her wings soft and pink and actively in the picture all suggesting the mental realm of air where she is most comfortable. Butterflies flit about and one is poised on her left, receptive, hand as if to let us know that this Queen, too, knows when to yield. The clouds in the distance part to let the dawn light through much the way the Queen of Swords' insights help to dispel any murky emotional thought processes.

This is a softer version of some Queen of Swords and yet her expression, while not severe, is certainly sober, a guide for times when rational, logical application is needed.

Crystal Visions Tarot ~ Crystal Reading Cards

All three cards together are telling me a story about honoring both the younger part of me and the less emotional, harder-edged mature side of me. Both have a valid voice with curiosity, aka self-love, as the bridge. The Queen of Swords in this trio looks as though she'd like to join her younger selves but is at a bit of a loss as to how to do that. I'm envisioning the three of them sitting together in the Queen's lofty cloud-palace and sharing their experience and the wisdom each of them has to offer while the Deva of Kunzite watches over them.

This scenario is one that I'll spend some time with today. It feels relevant and inviting and I'm curious to know whose voice will be the one most resonant in my own inner cloud-palace.

The Day's Initiate

This week I'll be working with the Crystal Reading Cards by Rachelle Charman and the Crystal Visions Tarot by Jennifer Galasso. My blogging week will be truncated as we head out for the workshop towards the end of the week. And with that workshop in mind I was happy to see this oracle card as my first draw and theme for the week...

Fluorite ~ Learning ~ Crystal Reading Cards

The crystal in this card is Fluorite and it appears in a range of purples, greens and yellows. In this deck each crystal corresponds to a particular chakra and in this instance Fluorite is associated with all of them. I'm not knowledgeable in either area so I'll leave that to the gods to work with.

Some of the qualities of this crystal are ::

~ stimulating the mental realm and decision-making process
~ balancing mind and body (are they separate?)
~ offering perspective

I don't know about all that but I do know that fluorite is the mineral form of calcium fluoride which is related to the fluoride that goes on teeth to harden them. Many cultures correlate the development of teeth in infants with a certain stage of development in the mental realm so I'm drawing some inferences here between fluorite, teeth and the mind which line up ever-so slightly with this mineral's qualities according to the card. Works for me!

This card has personal and immediate relevance because of my upcoming workshop. The LWB encourages me to feel the presence of the Fluorite Devas supporting my wish to deepen my knowledge base through life experience and study. I'll gladly take their support, needing all the help I can get!

King of Pentacles ~ Death ~ Crystal Visions Tarot

Seeing these two cards together I'm struck by their polarity. On the one hand we have a figure who represents abundance and wealth in the material world, someone for whom the body is an instrument of empowerment and mastery and on the other hand we have a figure for whom emptying is a theme, for whom the body is an offering made to the earth. With Learning as the bridge between these two I sense there is a palpable opportunity here.

Crystal Visions Tarot by Jennifer Galasso

This King of Pentacles sits confidently beneath a solid and ancient-looking tree that is healthy and full of greenery and strength. His throne is carved into the tree itself attesting to his comfort in and mastery of the earth realm. His crown is made of antlers and leaves and his hair flows freely down his back suggesting his strength and passion is also something fluid, sacred and active.

He holds a crystal trident in his right, active hand and various crystals are scattered about his feet. The beautiful roots of the tree are visible as thick ropes of support attesting to lineage and transmission, stories and power of the earth.

Seeing him here today I'm encouraged to be practical and active in my doings and to see some of the mundane prep work for this retreat as the actual work of the retreat--organizing dog and bird care, food shopping for the road, prepping the house for our sitter. The heart of the retreat begins long before the class starts. With this King in mind I can approach these tasks with the idea of spiritual mastery as an aspiration rather than as a list to get through.

Crystal Visions Tarot by Jennifer Galasso

From the mastery of the earth realm we move into mastery of the ether realm, the realm that contains all the elements.

This Death card is a slightly different depiction than the traditional RWS yet retains the idea of transition and transformation with the butterflies, the greenery, the lilies. A dark angel watches over a figure whose time has passed. Her body is draped over a rock inscribed with the words, Vita Mutatur, Non Tollitur, latin for Life is Changed not Taken.

This is an end to the status quo, a release of limited thinking. The dark night atmosphere suggests a descent into the underworld which is to say into the unconscious realms where the ego will undergo the necessary changes and transformation required for rebirth and renewal of vision and identity. I sense I'm being asked to release some old patterns here, old identities in relation to my limited view of what I feel I know or in this case, don't know.

Crystal Visions Tarot ~ Crystal Reading Cards

Together this trio feels very supportive. I shall view myself as an initiate today, someone for whom learning is first and foremost as I aspire to mastery in the earth realm, checking things off my to-do list. But supporting that I'm hoping to remember the spaciousness and renewal that comes with release as I hold the ether realm and transformation in my mind, being aware of habits and worn-out views that might want offering up.