Feast of the Annunciation

Art by J Kirk Richards

It’s the Feast of the Annunciation today. This potent moment has brought forth art that is compelling, inspiring, laden with mystery, grace, beauty, truth because it’s a living moment, a moment outside of the constricts of time, a moment that happens again and again not only within us, but more intimately *as* us. We’re drawn to what we know. And more potent still, we’re known by what we know.

I’ve written about the Annunciation in the past as the moment Mary confronts the magnificence and inviolate truth of her own creativity. The word, Annunciation, is rooted in the word, announcement, with close ties to the word, enunicate, all of which hold within them the power of voice.

To have direct access to our creative voice, to allow its birth, is to be birthed ourselves. And birth is...well, ask any mother. Birth is like nothing you could ever possibly imagine, a dance of extremes, pain and love, gravity and grace, a place where scream becomes song, where one brushes up against mortality and life, strength and vulnerability in equal parts.

I imagine all of these qualities to be present as Mary comes face to face with the inevitability of her own creative birth. I love this depiction by J Kirk Richards. There’s so much earth and fire here. Mary isn’t wearing the blue cloak we so often see but a brown one. Robed in the earth of her being she kneels. Her mouth is loose, slightly open, relaxed.

In the birth process, a relaxed mouth directly correlates to a relaxed cervix. And when the cervix is ready to allow the mother to begin pushing, she is called, effaced. Effaced, to make oneself inconspicuous, to withdraw. I think it’s no coincidence that effacement is a word to describe self awakening into the Beloved.

But imagine it. A moonless, starless night, a solitary Mary, a rush of wings, a blaze of light, a night-sky washed gold with radiance, an embrace at once fierce and tender, a confusion, a terror, a surrender as the sharp in-drawing of breath, of pneuma, of spirit is received. This is the moment she says Yes, accepts the imperative to create, accepts her soul’s fiat to bring the Beloved forth from the very heart of her being.

Our journey is Hers and she gives us an intimate map of that journey, whispers to us, 'we are each others' unfolding'. In our longing to awaken each of us must confront the fact of our own annunciation, each of us must come face to face with the fact of our own Gabriel, the inevitability of our own Yes. And so the Beloved meets each of us as She finds us bearing the good news that compassion with oneself is the midwife of creativity, that awakening and creativity inter-are. That we are God's love-drenched Yes.

Mysteries of Mary Tarot

Mysteries of Mary Tarot by Hettienne Groebler

After a very long wait this deeply compelling deck, The Mysteries of Mary Tarot, arrived on my birthday. The timing couldn't have been more perfect, absolutely the best day it could have arrived. It felt as if Mother Mary had been waiting for that specific day all along, to give me the gift of Herself, the Mother who births us all. Her arrival made a beautiful day luminous.

Shining with the Tribe

It's been awhile since I've blogged. Most of my input happens on IG which is more of a visual platform than a written one. Not that that deters me lol. This reading however merited a longer post accompanied by my aspiration to back into more regular blogging. My deck choices of late have been focused on the Motherpeace, Shining Tribe, Tarot of the Crone, and the like. This morning's reading came from the Rachel Pollack's Shining Tribe Tarot. And what a potent reading it was. I used a three-card spread created by Rachel Pollack herself.

Shining Tribe Tarot by Rachel Pollack

Spiritual History ~ The Hermit
Spiritual Challenge ~ Two of Birds🦉
Spiritual Gift ~ Nine of Rivers

Rachel defines the Spiritual History position as an archetypal pattern we've been living out to arrive at the present moment. Pulling that Hermit card was right on point. I’m a double Hermit, soul and personality card. I’m a Virgo rising, The Hermit’s ruling sign, and I’m in a Hermit year birth-wise. So to pull it for spiritual history felt utterly accurate. Honestly I have the felt-experience of traveling across lifetimes as this archetype, a mountain range of incarnations. It’s lonely and rich, both.

The Hermit ~ Shining Tribe Tarot

Loving the imagery here, a bird-being joyously ascending a hill holding a staff with a Goddess head carved into it. The sacred feminine both leading and supporting the seeker. And this Hermit’s body is an echo of the Shining Vision glyph (found throughout the deck) as is the landscape on which s/he stands and the blue flower on the hillside. I love this mirroring of earth and body, reiterating the reality that we aren’t separate, that awakening is an interdependence.

In this image the lantern we so commonly see The Hermit holding is to be found on the other side of the fabulous blue door carved into space. Implicit in the invitation to step through its threshold is the recognition and awareness of differing states of consciousness. This recognition contains within it the realization of movement as deeper truths are absorbed and embodied. Of course we are both door and lamp as well as the seeking of them in the same way that this Hermit’s body is a mirror of the landscape s/he travels.

In the position of Spiritual Challenge comes the Two of Birds aka Two of Swords in a traditional deck. The card in this position indicates a challenge or issues to face. I find it so interesting that in the first card a bird-being is the central focus and here in the second card there are two seemingly opposing bird-beings.

Two of Birds ~ Shining Tribe Tarot

There is tension here. It makes me think of what happens when two magnets are put together and they don't stick because they share the same charge. As if neither of these birds can move from their seeming opposition.

The snake wrapped around their ankles joining the two of them seems to hold the key. It feels like the staff in the first card, the feminine wisdom which guides and grounds. If they can access then movement, momentum is possible again. In terms of a spiritual challenge it feels like my relationship to the myth of duality, of a belief in a separate self and how that creates a sense of inner conflict, stasis and stress.

Snake is a totem and seeing her here feels like a vital piece of information. In terms of integration, that kundalini/Shakti energy is key. Snake's teachings on release of old 'skins, on transformation and womb/belly wisdom are a way through to a deeper understanding of and living in alignment with the Beloved within. This is interdependence.

Lastly in the position of Spiritual Gift comes the Nine of Rivers. It's an interesting image for a card normally associated with wish-making and granting and gift-giving, the fairy goddess-mother card is how I sometimes think of it.

Nine of Rivers ~ Shining Tribe Tarot

We see nine pots, eight of which have small cracks in them and liquid flowing out and one large pot  intact and full of a luminous elixir. Rachel describes it as the card of healing, acceptance of responsibility and rebuilding after a loss. There are themes of social awareness and helping out there, and concern to ease the suffering of others. What a powerful card to receive in this position of Spiritual Gift which she describes as the energy that will help with the challenges of the second card.

The dark blue water spilling from each of the eight broken pots brings me back to the dark blue door on the first card. Perhaps by embracing the dark blue cracks in our being, the schism of the Two of Birds, then the door into a more boundless sense of self becomes possible. That Hermit's lamp is waiting just beyond the dark blue door. It's like the ninth jar in this card, shining, luminous and whole.



This has been such a nourishing and surprisingly on point reading done on a whim with the app on my phone and then translated into the actual with my deck. This deck has become one of my top go-tos this year. I like it so much that it merited a special wrap which I knit up this week. Seeing it contained within my own work, a bit of red jasper tucked inside the ties, makes it feel all the more potent.

Five of Swords ~ Instinct and Intellect

Celestial Tarot by Kay Stevenson and Brian Clark

Censor the body and you censor breath and speech at the same time, writes Hélène Cixous in 'The Laugh of the Medusa.'

I've been reflecting on this phrase for a couple of months now. It came up a couple of months back when the Five of Swords was the card for that particular month. This depiction above, from the Celestial Tarot, shows us Pegasus, the divine winged horse, who was born from the severed head of Medusa. Censorship and severed heads have obvious, if visceral, points of intersection. And my subtitle for this card, the inner critic, carries on this theme of the silencing of voice. Medusa, with her hair of writhing snakes, could only be looked at with a mirror so deadening was her gaze. It's an interesting metaphor, reflection as a way in, the use of mirror, of indirect gaze as a tool for awakening.

Cioux writes in such a way as to leave the reader with questions as to the verity of this dark goddess's maligned nature. Censorship as the patriarchal silencing of feminine instinct, of kundalini energy, of uterine power. Not only does she draw a correlation between body and voice, implicit in her writing is the reality that body IS voice.

The Swords align with both communication and conflict. They represent the element of Air, the medium by which our spoken words are carried. Astrologically the Air trinity includes Gemini, Libra and Aquarius, each looking for its other half through relationship's mirror. One might look at the suit of Swords as the Earth longing to become aware, as a depiction of the seeming conflict between instinct and intellect.

Holding Cioux words in my awareness I lie down on the kitchen floor. The house is empty but for myself, the dogs and bird. I can see my limbs, breasts, belly, can sense sinew, muscle...all arranged on the worn wood surface, its uneven architecture lined up beneath me. Each pale strip holds stories, hollow and spacious like birds' bones, a poetics of emptiness. Feeling into the experience of censorship, of somatic censorship, that Cixous writes of here. Trying to find words for the flesh of the moment. And I realize that my throat is not big enough for this language that wants a skin.

Embodiment is a paradox. It’s a pilgrimage that ends ultimately in loss. There is no resolution in its mutable dialectic. Descending into the body is to grasp at the pages of transience while at the same time touching the limit of form. This tension mirrors the tension in all the Fives.

Soil and Stardust

Mesquite Tarot ~ Nature's Pharmacy Deck ~ Compendium of Constellations

It's a three-deck day today. Sometimes that's how it goes, the mind needs more rather than less to work with. I'm reminded of a teacher of mine who once shared that dull minds did well with complex meditation practices. I feel the truth in that today ;) Drawing from the newly published Mesquite Tarot along with the Nature's Pharmacy deck, put out by the New York Botanical Gardens and available on Amazon. It remains a favorite botanical deck for its simplicity and classic design. Pulling from the earth I decided to pull from the stars with the relatively new Compendium of Constellations. This turned out to be a relevant choice based on the qualities of the first card in my reading.

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Queen Ann's Lace🌿

Novice of Cups🏆

Four of Pentacles📀

Six of Pentacles📀

Sagitta 🏹

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Queen Anne's Lace is pretty spectacular. I know it best as the flowers that grew by the country roadsides and at the edges of meadows of my childhood. Its name inspired thoughts of castles, female magic, strength and beauty. Reading up on it now and I'm taken in by its presence, intelligence and generosity. Its large airy flower is shaped in such a way as to receive both air and light deep into its inner petals and radiate that energy back out. But its root system is equally impressive giving us the lowly and deliciously nutritious carrot! In short it's a balancer of soul and body, a mediator between upper and lower realms. 

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The Tarot's guidance begins with the Novice of Cups, the Page equivalent. Dipping my feet into the emotional realm suggests a titration of feelings, just enough to get my feet wet. The Four suggests I sit with those feelings silently, not to share until I'm ready which the Six then encourages me to do freely. This feels like more of an inner-outer ray than upper and lower and yet it keeps the theme of bridging two seeming polarities.

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Finally the stars offer me 'Sattiga', meaning arrow in Latin. Its keyword is 'Objective' suggesting two possibilities. One to consider what I'm aspiring towards and two to keep a spacious, non-judgmental attitude. This last bit is key, is integral to the alchemical process of becoming. Without space there's no room to grow, to see further, to be present to the amazement and complexities of the moment. 

Roses and Sun and Lions, Oh My!

Lioness Oracle Tarot by Alejandra Léon Wolfe Rocha

Just a short post to keep my foot in the blogging door. I've been working with the Lioness Oracle Tarot lately (available here) and really loving its feminine vibe, its depictions of the marriage of strength and receptivity. Today's question focused on a work-related proposal and the cards def came through. Seeing the Sun card my heart just sang. With its unapologetic claiming of vibrant space it elicits a similar response when looking at it. Radiant, strong, receptive and beautiful.

With Autumn just around the corner I imagine some of my more somber decks will make an appearance but for now this luminous beauty takes center stage. Leaving y'all with the blessings of The Sun.

Touchstone Tarot ~ Soul Work

Touchstone Tarot by Kat Black

This morning as I surveyed my decks I felt a restlessness. Not really interested in reading symbols, imagery, doing a spread for the day and so forth and none of my decks were calling to me. What was it I really wanted? And then came the words, an encounter with Soul. Yes, that was it! Something deeper than a surface reading, than using the usual map. And no sooner had this aspiration arisen than the Touchstone Tarot ,with its portraiture of soulful, evocative figures, leapt out as the deck to use. And oh my, it did not disappoint. 

From the top of the deck I drew The Hermit, from the bottom of the deck I drew the Three of Cups. The Hermit is both my soul and personality card according to Mary Greer's formula for calculating your cards using your birthdate. I also happen to be in a Hermit year based on the same birthdate calculations so seeing this card come up felt juicy, real, magical. I felt heard. Which is what we all want in the end, isn't it.

The Hermit ~ Touchstone Tarot

This particular Hermit is full of earthy and ethereal magic. I immediately noticed how his hand seems to be gently releasing the women in the Three of Cups, with the graceful kind of touch that we see in da Vinci's Hand of God painting. And sure enough he meets them, transformed, into Owl, Stag and Cat. His eyes are closed here suggesting a different kind of vision is needed to navigate the inner realms. And his yellow lantern swinging by his midsection speaks to me of third chakra work, the solar plexus, seat of power, will and mental acuity. No coincidence that yesterday I drew a card focused on this chakra in relation to body work I've been doing. 

What this card speaks to for me, is the necessity of acknowledging the animal body, its instinctual wisdom, its strength, its intuitive knowing. There is such movement here with the tilt of his head, the gesture of his left hand, the swing of the lantern and drape of his robes. And yet there is presence in that movement, awareness and receptivity. 

This is precisely where I find myself. Working with the body in this slow, quiet, receptive way. Opening to its language, a different kind of listening is being asked of me. It's new territory, to be attentive, gentler to this body. I'm pulling from several different traditions and teachers as I find my way, often in the dark but with the will to know, to learn to really want to inhabit it more. Solar Plexus energy is fire, it's digestion and assimilation. Mine has been compromised for various reasons and this is an area I really find myself needing to dig deep. The number Three of the Cups card underscores this chakra work for me. It's definitely inner work, a pulling in and back from things. 

Three of Cups ~ Touchstone Tarot

These three women here feel very inclusive in their communion. There is a place for me here to participate in their quiet joy. Those three feminine bodies within, Maiden/Mother/Crone, feel welcoming. Their gazes are full of the mystery of what it is to be human, to share, to be a woman. They're not giving much away and yet what they o offer is full of presence and depth. Just the kind of energy I wanted to meet today. Quiet, unassuming and powerful. All the blue suggests throat chakra energy, giving voice to connection, to joy.

It's not as though this pair of cards are the arrival, more that they are part of the process, that of listening in to what is being asked for, what is needed in the moment and moving from there. Rather than giving me concrete answers it feels as though the cards have gathered round me, have offered me a container, a mirror and way in. And they've done so with beauty, with grace and with gravitas. 

I shall be sitting with them for a while, working with them, listening to their guidance, their mysteries and poetry. Sometimes it's not about the answer but more about the question that begins the journey.