Inner Vistas

Medicine Woman Tarot ~ Carol Bridges

I'm very much enjoying my Medicine Woman Tarot, surprisingly so as this was a deck I passed by many times. Right now with its combination of earth-based imagery and pastel drawings it feels just right. The Inner Guidbook, as it's called, is full of lots of meditations, visualizations and exercises to do in relation to the cards. Some of them resonate others don't but there's a lot to choose from and I'm enjoying deepening with the cards when I feel moved to do one of the offerings. Today Eagle is the oracle card I drew and the Six of Arrows (Swords) from the Tarot.

Eagle ~ Medicine Cards

Eagle (shown here with my magnificent Raven's feather, the perfection of which can't be fully seen in this pic) is the first card in the deck, sovereign, masterful, encompassing, initiating. The medicine for Eagle is Spirit. To that I would add vision and perspective. The LWB says, If Eagle has majestically soared into your cards, you are being put on notice to reconnect with the element of air. If you've been walking in the shadows of former realities Eagle brings illumination. See the beauty in both...Eagle medicine is the gift we give ourselves to remind us of the freedom of the skies.

The air element is an element I'm comfortable in so reconnecting with it feels less applicable than does seeing all the ways it permeates my day to day. I've never had the gift of seeing one of these majestic creatures in the wild though I have seen them at sanctuaries and even there they lived up to their sovereign energy. I remember a particular scene from the movie 'Winged Migration' in which an eagle coming in to land on a crag was filmed in slo-mo. Being up close to the bird like that as it landed allowed the viewer to see the full extent of its body, its muscular strength and its grace. I could see so easily why so many cultures revered this bird for in that moment it embodied qualities that were both avian and human, a blending of which one might ascribe to a god.

Six of Arrows ~ Medicine Woman Tarot

The Six of Arrows carries on the theme of air today with the suit of Arrows replacing the more traditional suit of Swords. The Six of Swords is one of my favorite cards in a deck and there are certain elements I like to see. This has very few of them and yet, perhaps because it's been renamed and the whole deck veers away from the RWS version fairly consistently, I don't mind this representation.

We see a man clothed in the sun wearing a mantle of green over his back. Before him lies an ocean of possibility, a sun on the horizon is positioned in such a way as to illuminate his own head ascribing to him a state of haloed grace. There are mountains the distance with their promise of higher learning, of wisdom gained, new vistas. A broken arrow lies at his feet suggesting that he must leave behind outworn concepts that don't serve him anymore, that keep him from wholeness.

He is poised to step forward into the living stream, has taken the first step but needs to take that leap of faith to continue on his way. Both of these cards speak to new vistas, vison with perspective. Bridging them might look like something Rumi describes in one of his poems...

Birds make great sky-circles of their freedom
How do they learn it?
They fall and falling
they're given wings.

Every Idea is a Seed

Medicine Cards ~ Medicine Woman Tarot

It's hot here today, uncharacteristically so. We're all laboring under the humidity and high temps that characterize more southern climes but I have to say, I actually like it. This is the heat of my childhood though with less humidity. We used to only get a few groupings of several days like this over the course of the summer but now these mini heatwaves are becoming more consistent as global warming makes its presence felt, as Mother Nature yields and dances to maintain the balance of power. Which is pretty much how these two cards feel. I drew them in the cool(ish) of the earlier morning.

Horse and Bounty

Horse ~ Medicine Cards ~ Sams & Carson

Horse medicine speaks to power and its skillful use. Both my guys here at home are Horses in the Chinese astrological paradigm so I'm familiar with this somewhat boisterous, dynamic energy. The LWB speaks to the idea that understanding the power of Horse allows us to strive for balance. It goes on to say "True power is wisdom found in remembering your total journey. Wisdom comes from remembering pathways you have walked in another person's moccasins. Compassion, caring, teaching, loving, and sharing your gifts, talents and abilities are the gateways to power." 

When I reflect on my relationship with these magnificent creatures I feel a depth of muscular speed and grace, a keen emotional intelligence and sentience and the potential for a tremendous gathering energy when needed. They are bold and refined in the same breath. It's interesting to meditate on these qualities in relation to the medicine of power, perhaps inferences I wouldn't so readily draw if I were focusing on power in isolation, as a concept not bodied by Horse. Secretariat comes to mind as I look at the list of qualities I associate with Horse. He was an astonishing creature who seemed to be poised between the human and animal realm, moving back and forth between the two as needed, surely an example of magic/power if there ever was one.

Bounty ~ Medicine Woman Tarot

 My heart always lifts a little when this card comes up. Traditionally The Empress in the RWS system here it's entitled Bounty. The creator focuses primarily on the Mother Earth/Nature aspect of this card. I loved what she has to say about this card and felt my perspective was enlarged by the lens she views it through.

I like the way this Cosmic Mother is seated upon the Earth as her throne. Her back rests against the trunk of a great tree, her feet are large and bare and they straddle both earth and water. She has a nursling at her breast whom she nourishes with an ease that I recognize from my own days as a nursing mom when that was so woven into the day it was as natural as breathing.

Her basket is full, crops ripen and encircling it all is a rainbow and manifest sun. It's a lovely depiction of spirit in nature. Says the LWB...

"I recognize the laws of nature and work with them. This is my power. I live in the garden of delights. I choose my concepts wisely like the flowers I choose to plant. Every idea is a seed. I water what is beautiful. I am the womb of creation, through which the fullness of life flows into every thought I dwell upon, giving it life.  bear the children who are the arts of myself needing to be expressed. As the Cosmic Mother, I have given you life in order that you may blossom into your fullness."

The Empress as Immanence, a bounty that is articulate. The author includes visualizations and exercises to go with the various Majors and here she suggests, 'Think of your mind as a garden. What grows there?" What mental concepts am I watering, what visions am I tending to? What fears am I feeding? What dreams need light? I actually did most of the meditations for this card, something I normally skip, and found them helpful in accessing its different strata.

Epona

Together these make for a dynamic pair. The power of mother nature is the obvious inference to draw but reading along in the LWB I began to have a different sense of The Cosmic Mother/Empress in relation to power. Power as Her Immanence, the indwelling sentience that animates the living world, that quivers interdependently through all life, a numinous current. Her seat of power is her presence, undifferentiated. And of course one can't help but think of Epona, the Gallic-Roman horse goddess, protector of grain, goddess of fertility and leader of souls in the afterlife. In her we see Horse and Bounty merge seamlessly...

The Earth that is Dreaming Us

Medicine Cards ~ Medicine Woman Tarot

Today I'm using Medicine Cards by Jamie Sams & David Carson combined with the Medicine Woman Tarot by Carol Bridges. After a busy weekend with lots of driving and various duties I was left feeling scattered and not able to settle. I didn't want to read, or zentangle, or write or look at Tarot decks (gasp!) or watch anything. I sat for awhile breathing into my hara center to feel the earth of my body a little more solidly and then I decided to pull some cards, to see what medicine was needed.

Lizard and The Grandfathers.

Lizards move from sun to shadow and back again when needed to regulate their body temperature. I loved to watch the geckos when we lived in Hawaii and when I was pregnant with my son I spent a good part of that first nauseous trimester lying in bed watching the Jackson's chameleons lazily climb the trees in the jungle outside our cabin. The LWB gives their medicine as 'Dreaming' and reflecting back on my encounters with these creatures I can feel that connection.

Lizard ~ Medicine Cards ~ Jamie Sams & David Carson

Says the LWB, Lizard is the medicine of dreamers...dreams illuminate the shadow. If Lizard dreamed a space in your cards today, it may be time to look and see what is following along behind you. Is it your fears, your future trying to catch up with you, or is it the part of you that wants to ignore your weaknesses and humanity?

Hmm, perhaps that's some of the source of my agitation. Certainly there are selves that want a voice that I'm not too keen to listen to. Sometimes they come up in dreams, sometimes they come up in more oblique ways...short words, restlessness, wanting more, even fatigue.

Dreams are a natural way to work with this energy because the dreambody isn't as mitigated by the ego as the waking self is. In dreams we're often given a less distilled version of the shadow to work with. Sometimes I draw my dream images, sometimes I move them through authentic movement, sometimes I write about them. The key is to open up a dialogue with them and see what they have to say, where they want to go, who they want to be. The dream is just the beginning of the conversation. And as I write I'm reminded of a dream of several weeks ago that is awaiting my conscious involvement. Perhaps this is the day to work with it.

The Grandfathers ~ Medicine Woman Tarot

Last week I drew The Grandmothers and today I'm being visited by The Grandfathers. This is traditionally The Star card in the RWS deck. In the foreground we see several generations. They form a semi-circle suggesting the passage of time, cycles of life, transmission from generation to generation. The first two figures, to the right and center, are ghostly figures from the past. They're drawn in soft pastels, barely there color and line. The stream flows through them, telling us of the stream of timeless wisdom that is available to all of us. Available because it's not external, we are its flow, its current, its body.

Next a soft feminine figure acts as anchor, two beings on each side of her, her presence a marker, a doorway perhaps between the manifest and the hidden. The next figure is wearing the strength and solidity of earth tones, colors I associate with the present, the actual. He has his hand on the back, the heart center actually, of a young boy dressed in the green of beginnings, of growth and potential, the future. The boy stands before the clear stream that is winding its way through a sacred grove. The trees are mature, wisdom-holders in their own right. The source of the stream appears to be from the star shining above the mountains, its light spilling down to earth in a watery blessing, passing through the bodies of those who've gone before.

The figure points towards the star with his left, receptive hand while his right, active hand is on the boy's back. This simultaneous use of the left and right hand speaks of receptivity coupled with empowered action. Perhaps he's telling the boy, keep your eyes and heart on the star and your path will be clear. Perhaps he's reminding the boy of the blessings the star can bring. The overall feeling in this card is of transmission and inspiration and how the two go hand in hand. Where there is wisdom and experience, there is inspiration.

Today I feel I'm being invited to bridge two realms that are closely related--dialoguing with the shadow through dream while at the same time embodying the inspiration of those wisdom-holders who've gone before me. I like to think that the Earth is dreaming me into being as much as I'm dreaming Her into being, that She walks within me as much as I walk upon Her. Co-creatrix. This kind of co-creation might be as simple as bringing the realm of inspiration and dream into form on the page with color and line. I'm enjoying looking over at the cards throughout the day. The combination is peaceful, a gentle reminder that these elements are quietly here, engaging with me.

Medicine Cards ~ Medicine Woman Tarot