The Beauty of It

I've been exploring Mark Nepo's, The Book of Awakening, with a view to how it might interface with the Tarot. His book contains an entry for each day of the year exploring themes that bind us to our own humanity in ways painful, powerful, beautiful, and unanswerable. Each day he offers a question or observation to work with and as a way for my fire-ether self to earth some of the offerings I'm considering adding a daily card draw to the mix as a way to meet the teachings with more immediacy, to try and articulate the intangible. The theme for December 27th is, The Beauty of It.
 
If all I have is Now,
where will I look for Joy?

These two short phrases bring up a wealth of impressions...the assumption that we only have Now, the implication that Joy is something to be looked for, that it requires effort and action, and the delight in seeing Now and Joy capitalized for the deities they are. Traveling a little with this I sense that Now embraces both the past and the future within the womb of the arising moment. Mark opens the day with this...
 
Without hope for the future, without hope that things will change, with no hope of finding what's been lost, and no hope of restoring the past, with only the risk to crack open all that has been hardened about me, what will I do with what I have? 

Several weeks ago in response to issues that were arising for me I turned to one of my Oracle decks for solace and pulled a beautiful card entitled, Hope. My immediate, unbidden response was, 'hope is for children'. An unfamiliar voice from I know not where. I was stunned at the starkness of this, its unadorned harshness...and soberly, what to me feels to me like, its truth. It did not come with bitterness or anger, nor cynicism, it simply came as a statement and because it came quietly with little emotion I've had to sit with it, to breathe with it, to allow it to inform me. I sense it's asking for my presence rather than my understanding. It has disturbed me deeply and is lodged in my body-heart like an undigested meal.

Seeing Mark's words above feel like small, green shoots branching off that thunderous message of several weeks ago. I shared with one of my Crone guides, a woman of tremendous wisdom and heart, my experience and her wonderful response set up a flare or two through my being...she said, "I think of hope as a state...or you might say a mood or a tendency of spirit...It has nothing to do with ordinary reality. One could call it childish but since it is familiar to me and makes me optimistic which is slightly cheerful I encourage it...but I understand your view...I guess this puts me more towards the pragmatic than you.

To that last phrase I must add, infinitely so lol. So holding the phrase in my heart, If all I have is Now, where will I look for Joy, I drew a Tarot card into this atmosphere of ambivalence, confusion and curiosity...

Five of Cups ~ Aquarian Tarot

Based on my current 'crise de foie' which is to say my argument with God--is it possible to be disillusioned with the Ineffable--it couldn't be more perfect, more relevant, more resonant, and more distressing. 

What does the Tarot give me as an answer? One I cannot reject...myself. Look for joy in your fear of disappointment, is the contradictory phrase that comes to mind. Fives are a tricky number, in the Tarot all the fives have to do with upset of some kind, either physical or emotional. They test us but they also have the capacity to bring out untapped strength...if we allow it. Like the wind blowing the reeds in this card, and the black birds, divine messengers, soaring high above the contracted figure, there is movement to be found in even the most static of states.
 
Rather than the traditional 'look beyond the shadow and see the possibility for other joys', what rings more true here is to look directly into the places we least expect to find it, to look for it in the liminal, in the somatic shadows themselves, in those places in the body that hold disappointment, the armoring, the depressed breath, the slouch, the crossed arms, the Stance, the turned back. In this case looking for joy becomes synonymous with looking for space, for expansion, for moments of light. This is not the response I was expecting...and thus it rings out with a truth I can't ignore. 

What does it mean to do this? Is it possible? The moment the crossed arms loosen just the slightest, the point where the breath releases, the slouch that opens up ever so slightly...for me at this point in my journey, these are all moments of authentic joy, joy that is rooted in the small, in the detail, in the house of the body, joy that I can come home to again and again because it is cellular. There is a quiet, sober beauty in this. Which is to say there is a quiet sober beauty within me, the way there is within every one of us when we choose to stop, and listen to the voice that is continually articulating itself with each authentic question asked and lived out to the best of our humanity.

Hecate's Daughters

Soul Cards ~ Vol. 1

I drew this to journey with last week when the day's theme was 'Hecate's Daughters'. When I looked at it I could feel so palpably the living legacy of Hecate, of Persephone, of Demeter and the whole tribe of women for whom the Underworld is a place of transformation. Jung's pithy quote on this realm swims into the fore with an immediacy that stuns..."One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious." This is clearly something to live into. What does it mean to make the darkness conscious, what does it mean in the context of Hecate's body, her truth? Is it even possible to pin down such musings with something as finite as an answer? I don't think so but we can catch gleanings, whispers, intimations and so I drew some cards...

Tarot of the Hidden Realm

I'm not sure what I was expecting but certainly not so much dazzle, not this luminous offering of beauty and generosity, of stability and the manifest.

The earth of the body is where sovereignty lies. Its darkness becomes numinous if received with an awareness undifferentiated by preference. The soul is the wilderness of endless return, lose yourself in the gesture of its embrace. Its landscape is the body, the loam of its truth...

These are the words that came through as I took in the cards. I had to sit with them awhile afterwards to parse them out breath by breath...sometimes this kind of poetic guidance flows through unstopped by my critical faculty and it's only afterwards in the ebb of its wave that it settles somewhere in my body for me to be able to work with.




In this instance all points towards the earth, the body, the manifest realm, that is the place to begin making the darkness conscious. The King and young child have been transformed into a union of opposites in The Lovers card suggesting it's not through a polarizing of dark and light that one awakens to an embodiment of awareness but rather by integrating one into the other, through coniunctio...the sacred and alchemical marriage of spiritus and mater...soul and body. The child is father to the man, says Wordsworth and here that phrase leaps from this card pairing with prescience. To be led through the dark with a childlike wisdom, to be ripened into maturity by innocence, by wonder, by not knowing...this is how dark and light come to know each other as entwined limbs of the same holy body.

Jung's words breathe their darkly luminous syllables of truth through the underworld of my own body like the sacred seeds of a mantric hymn...to make conscious the darkness...the first gesture of awakening is somatic...Love as the perfect consensus of breath and cell...

The World Stands Out

Touchstone Tarot ~ Kat Black

Much needed wisdom from the cards today...

The world stands out on either side

No wider than the heart is wide...

~ Edna St. Vincent Millay ~

Words Fall

Wild Unknown Tarot ~ Earthbound Oracle

I'm feeling quiet here on the blog. My Thirty Days of Hecate journey is one of the reasons as it's drawing forth material that isn't conducive to general sharing. Partly it's the time of year--things go quiet, creatures, of which I am one, sink into the warmth, draw close and contract. And partly it's that I'm tired of the sound of my own voice--an odd thing for a writer and poet to feel but certainly a season and cycle in any writer's life. A more inward place is unfolding and words just fall short a lot of the time. I decided to see what the cards had to say about my disinclination towards words using the Wild Unknown Tarot and the Earthbound Oracle.

The Ace of Swords presents the seed of things right away...Swords, suit of communication, conflict, the written word, clarity and discrimination. Here the sword is inanimate, no hands are holding it, no one is wielding it. We see it in potentia, undifferentiated from its essence but consecrated nonetheless, given a body by the rainbow leminscate promising the full spectrum of its inherent gifts when it's taken up. But not right now. Right now is a time for holding this instrument in awareness, meditating on it, contemplating its far-reaching power, creating space for its purpose without the need to use it.

Following upon its heels is the oracle card, Home. It depicts a turtle carrying its shell on its back plus several nests and a bird...the turtle looks burdened with responsibility and the need to carry the weight of others. She looks to the past and is focused on the ground, the earth and further even below that as though peering through the strata that holds all the important and minute details of her life, her journey. I find my home in the written word and it's poignant for me to see this card appear in the center of things. Words feel burdensome right now, extraneous, disingenuous even. The dark, unknown earth is where I'm interested in traversing, in living, in calling home. Density rather than ether, ground rather than air. A switch for me and perhaps why I feel a little at sea. Words have always anchored me, it's the earth, the manifest that has been my challenge...

Lastly the Seven of Wands appears. A single flame-tipped wand illuminates the darkness. Some meditation spent with this card yields the realization that I am the flame-tipped Wand trying to make my way through this dark body of the year within and without, feeling the weight of all that I'm carrying, the past which is asking for light, for air, for a form outside the ink-black sky of ambivalence, something more lasting than words. A new perspective feels like it's asking for a place in my awareness...the Wands encouraging me to yield to the possibility that a different kind of creativity is being called forth to shine...to feel the earth beneath my feet as a place of infinite awareness. This drawing has offered permission, encouragement to allow the writer in me whatever kind of freedom she needs to come into deeper relationship with the inner body that wants voice...be that one of silence or song.

Wild Unknown Tarot ~ Earthbound Oracle

Let Yourself Be Silently Drawn

Dark Goddess Tarot ~ Ellen Lorenzi-Prince

This draw feels intimately relevant and resonant to my journey right now. I drew this pair a couple of days ago and didn't have time to work with them until just a little bit ago. The Dark Goddess Tarot is proving to be a wonderful companion during this season. One or two cards suffice as there is so much teaching and wisdom to be gleaned from a single goddess. Both of these cards slipped from the deck as I was shuffling and I bowed to their proffered presence.

Sedna ~ Eight of Water ~ Dark Goddess Tarot

Here we see Sedna, Eight of Water (Cups). She is the Inuit Goddess of the Ocean, Mother of the animals of the sea and Queen of the Underworld. She holds multitudes in her tangled hair and her reign is located beyond breath, in the dark, arctic seas. She created this queendom by leaving her life behind her. A sobering and challenging reality. The phrase that came to me for this card was, unfold your own myth.

While out on the ocean with her father Sedna falls into the water and her father, in an effort to save himself, hits and/or chops off her fingers to free his kayak from her grip. Echoes of The Handless Maiden here.

She dies at the hands of the one she trusted to care for her, a chilling realization. But her amputated fingers become the creatures of the ocean as seen in this card. In the depths her mutilation is transformed. Dismemberment does not break her, it multiplies her. Such power in this statement and one to take to heart when journeying into the shadow realms to retrieve those lost parts of the self.

The LWB suggests caring for the inner child, the one who has been betrayed, who feels alone. Listen to her stories, tell her some stories, tuck her in. These are all such wise offerings to make to the young aspects of the soul wanting integration. And I anticipate some intentional time spent in the presence of this young self, time in which to see what old wounds are operating below the surface of the manifest...those areas of irritation, compulsion, aversion that are actually a way of asking for attention. Even a change in awareness becomes a pathway to healing the deeper wound though the path may take us thick into the forests of the night before coming out the other side.

The Black Madonna ~ The Empress ~ Dark Goddess Tarot

And here She is, the one whose embrace my Sedna-self is swimming towards. The Empress as embodied by the Black Madonna whose darkness is womb-rooted. My relationship with this goddess goes back several decades and she continues to inform my journey. In Europe she is sometimes called The Mother of Miracles, venerated more for her magical power than her spiritual blessing.

She embodies the primacy of darkness and inspires one to look beyond the surface of things to accept the full glory of that multi-contextual reality. The author suggests in relation to this card to assess things with an open heart and not allow our definition of 'best' limit the outcome for good.

Whenever I interface with the Black Madonna even if it's just a glance at a passing image of Her, I'm reminded of the power of the shadow body, of the redemptive grace inherent in its wisdom when reclaimed with love and awareness. She is there, a warm, dark, knowing receptivity to be enfolded into.

The two cards together brought forth a phrase from one of Rumi's poems...Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray. I feel these words as Hecate's torches shining their light upon the pitch and ebon darkness of the unknown path I'm treading, feeling my way step by step...hand over hand...breath by breath.

You Are Your Deepest Intention

Dark Goddess Tarot ~ Ellen Lorenzi-Prince

In the now lighter morning glow I drew from the Dark Goddess Tarot, a deck I've had a while but haven't delved into much. This time of year feels perfect to travel with these dark ladies. Today a simple two card draw and yet the wonderful and not so little LWB gives such a depth of material to work with that a two card draw becomes a journey in itself.

The Moon ~ Arianhrod ~ Dark Goddess Tarot

I drew The Moon first, on this day to honor the dead. In this depiction we see Arianhrod, whose name means Silver Wheel, the Welsh Mother of the Night, goddess of the moon, sky and stars. She shifts shape into an owl of the night who sees in the dark, who sees ahead and behind. Silence is her language as embodied through wings that are soft and noiseless.

Change arrives bit by bit over time, suggests Ellen. I draw comfort from the encouragement to maintain my intention and stay with the process as well as the recognition that deep forces and feelings are involved. Journeying with Hecate I can't help but feel the relevance of this advice. The gentle encouragement from this card to let things unfold, to follow those inner quickenings no matter that they look different than what I may have planned is a comfort. Trusting the guides, signs and gleanings along the way is key.

The suggestion is to wear moonstone and silver today. As well as to get more sleep so the mind can be washed in the element of dreams. With the clocks being turned back and myself waking at 2:30 I feel this advice on a practical level. She goes on to say that "listening to the intimate and innate knowledge of your physical being brings celestial wisdom into embodiment."

Sitting with The Moon, allowing its light to wash over me feels nourishing today. There are the usual calls on my attention and they're at odds with the more reflective energy this card exudes. The next card though brings it all down to earth.

Gaia ~ Ace of Earth ~ Dark Goddess Tarot

The Ace of Earth, Mother Gaia herself calling gently to me to bring my dreams into reality, my imaginative wanderings, intuitive body and creativity into the ground of everyday life. Not an easy task for me.

The keyphrases are, The Earth gives birth to giants. Time to grow. Here we see her inseparable from her element, rising up out of the earth, blessing everything within her gaze. She is the Mother of All.

Going out into the natural world feels like something to do to acknowledge her presence. Stone holding, river watching, lying on the ground and letting the clouds drift through the sky of the body all are ways to honor her. I like what Ellen has to say here, Embracing your life is not a one-time task. For best results, keep your arms open and keep going. Be brave enough to work on your big dream.

I think of all the small seeds I am planting in relation to my 'big dream'. Of course *I* am my big dream, as are we all, each and everyone of us is the dream we're unerringly seeking...

Your body is a heaven arising 
as the ellipse of its own earth.
A celestial bending of light,
You are your deepest intention.

Offerings in the Graveyard

A perfect video for this day to honor the souls of the dead. The collusion of joy and song and movement with the still and ghostly landscape of the graveyard reminds me of the profound practice of Chod originated by the 11th century Tibetan tantric Buddhist practitioner, teacher and yogini, Machig Labdron. The chod practitioner seeks to tap the power of fear through activities such as rituals set in graveyards, and visualization of offering their bodies in a tantric feast in order to put their understanding of emptiness to the ultimate test...

Machig Labdron

We don't necessarily see that ritualized here in this video but we do see offerings of love, the dancing body and heart...a great place to begin...and end.