Fire into Water into Fire

Shadows capes Tarot ~ Stephanie Mun-Pui Law

In many ways this pair of archetypal energies is a study in elemental contrasts, Fire and Water. Where the two meet is the realm of transformation, it's where the dialogue leaves off and a subtler alchemy begins, more lasting than words.

I drew these cards a few days ago and found I had nothing to say about them. Nothing. They fit together within me so intrinsically that anything I thought about them felt extraneous. And yet clearly they had wisdom to impart, something to choreograph me with. Why was nothing coming through from such resonant archetypal energy? 

Shadowscapes Tarot ~ Strength

So I waited. Photographed them a bunch of times. Deleted all the photos because no one was speaking. Worked with some stones. Some plants. And then all of a sudden there they were--a relationship unfolding, a story. Their presence to be experienced inclusively, interdependently.

The goddess in Strength finding her oracular wings, her intuitive voice in the High Priestess, as she dares to give way to dream, to subtlety. Her Lion familiar shapeshifting into the Wisdom-Owl. The fiery sun energy slipping beneath the horizon, taking form as the subtle, crepuscular moon. Yellow into blue. And what will come of that color alchemy?!!! The green of manifestation. Such bodhisattvic potential there is here. 

They are two rays of the same divine feminine body. Sekhmet, Durga, Freya slipping off the voluptuous red robes of noon, of soma and drawing around her the sylph-body gown of the liminal, the Delphic night, Selene, Wadjet, Isis, Persephone...hidden, cached in the betwixt and between world. She who resists interpretation.

Shadowscapes Tarot ~ The High Priestess

They are sisters who communicate obliquely. Secrets whispered back and forth across mysteries. The threshold of the self is their byway. 

I carry both of these sovereign energies within me. Both these majesties have claim on my own betwixt and between body, the one who roams the night skies and knows how to navigate the Moon's fluctuating attentions and the one who pads through the sun drenched fields of the robust world of name and form, appetite and limit. 

I bow to both of them. Simultaneously. For that is the point, that simultaneity is their wisdom, their truth. 

Love's Reach

Shadowscapes Tarot ~ Stephanie Mun-Pui Law

Imagine the incredible healing power of sending out my love into the atmosphere, in a widening ring of compassion whose momentum knows no bounds. Together the Ace of Cups and the Eight of Wands makes me think of the Buddhist practice of metta, often translated as loving-kindness. But can also be interpreted as compassion, presence, acceptance, acknowledgement. These are all variations on Love's theme.

Ace of Cups ~ Shadowscapes Tarot

Sit quietly for a few moments to become aware of your breathing. Allow any concerns to drop away for just these moments and begin to feel your breath circulating around your heart center.

Since loving kindness begins at home begin by extending love or presence to yourself. The mantra goes like this:

May I be well. May I be happy. May I be at peace.

Go slowly, feel the words in your body and take a moment to notice where you feel them. Next do this same thing with someone you love. Again feeling your own capacity to be love.

Continue on with friends, neighbors, animals, trees, mountains, oceans, planets until you feel complete. When that feeling arises choose someone you have difficulty with and do the same practice.

Eight of Wands ~ Shadowscapes Tarot

Notice any sensations that arise. Place your hands on your heart and feel its rhythm for a few moments. Acknowledge its capacity to love. Which is, of course, your own capacity to love.

It's a simple but powerful practice. And like the puffballs the woman in the Eight of Wands is wishing on and blowing into the air, so, too it is with the love we send out into the world around us and beyond. Intention has form, has effect, has power.

The elementals that surround her, the foxes that witness her, the tree she rests upon and the sky that forms her backdrop can all be those aspects of ourselves that support our own unfolding. The places we listen to our intuition, the flame of instinct, the strength and rootedness of our bodies carrying us through life and the sky of our awareness bearing silent witness to it all.

Joy and Honoring

The anticipatory pre-draw hush, indeed a magic hour. I love this part of daily draws, a momentary pause as intuition and intellect realize they coexist. And in that moment of realization a spaciousness unfolds. Sometimes it only lasts a few seconds, other times it lingers. Either way it's a nourishing and expansive part of my daily Tarot ritual.

Regret, loss, the grass is greener elsewhere, passive rejection of pleasure, sorrow...these are some themes that float to the surface with the Five of Cups.

On the other side of the coin is the Four of Wands. If the Five is a postponement of the present, the Four is an embodiment of it.

As a suit we see the blessing of the Ace, the prep work and anticipation of the Two and Three have yielded fruit here in the Four. A time to honor the effort preceding the initial success.

Honor can be a word with heaviness and sobriety. But here joy is a way to honor, celebration is a way to honor, community connection is a way to honor. The point is the sacred pause of awareness of one's contribution to a project, goal, journey.


 But the fire must remain lit, must be continuously fed to keep the blaze going. Particularly considering the card that follows this one with its fractious, competitive, dance-spar energy. So no resting on laurels here.  Make merry and greet the next day with equal intention and enthusiasm for the ongoing journey.

This combination of cards is suggesting that if we can let go of certain unrealistic dreams, losses and hurts, all of which we may have been nourishing with our focus and attention rather than on the immediacy of other gifts in our life, then the opportunity for joy and connection will be accessible to us in a vibrant and vital way. In this Five of Cups the figure is surrounded by elementals who are all whispering in her ear of the realities and fruitfulness that lie before her but she can't hear them. So, too, is it with letting go of hoped for outcomes or situations. I have found that one way of letting go is through the practice of gratitude. Thanking the universe for all the gifts, no matter how small (that first morning coffee!) allows a kind of loosening, a bit of space for the light to come through.

Beauty as Magic, as Refuge

Shadowscapes Tarot ~ Stephanie Pui-Mun Law

Tired after a sleep-short night. Eager to see what the cards had to say. Second day in a row with two Majors. Second consecutive day that Death shows up. My experience with this card is that it comes in waves. Today it's in the same position with another masculine Major following it. Pulled a foundation card from the bottom of the deck for a little more clarity.

Death • The Magician • Ace of Pentacles

The Magician ~ Shadowscapes Tarot

This Magician has a shamanic quality to him with his wings and dragon crown, his tattoos and mask. He is master of all the elements. They hang at the edge of his wings in the form of a shining crystal, shells, raven feathers, and a leafing branch.

He so feels very magical to me, in active and visceral relationship with the elemental energies. I don't always get that feeling from other Magician cards. The lovely jonquils and roses, the gorgeously shaped rock supporting him with its curves and stories, the mudras of the birds and gradations of sky. Even the lemniscate above his head, which I like to think of as the fifth element, ether, glows with subtle grace, not calling attention but simply affirming his relationship with Spirit

Here Beauty is pronounced. Here it feels that Beauty is also a form of Magic. Has its place amidst other skills this Magician might call upon. And when I consider Beauty's role and place in my own life I feel its power, its alchemical ability to transform my state. Sometimes it's all that gets me through the day.

Shadowscapes Tarot ~ Stephanie Pui-Mun Law

'Power forces surrender, Beauty inspires it', said a great Sufi Saint. That has been my experience. The heart naturally, joyfully softens and opens when kneeling at Beauty's altar. And the 'beautiful' thing about this is how personal it is. As though Spirit recognizes just what will be the healing agent for each of us.

Today seeing these three cards I feel I'm being encouraged to continue to trust the deep process of transformation that I'm in, trust the greening abundance beneath me. With extra emphasis on Beauty as refuge.

The Empress : Imagination is Everything

This beautiful bouquet of flowers was a spontaneous gift yesterday from the mother of ds's best buddy. They're from her garden and she sent them back with my dh as a little Mother's Day offering. I was so touched by her thoughtfulness, her intention and, of course, her attunement to beauty. My own mother is gone from this good earth and my friend's generous gift got me thinking about The Empress, about how that role is now shaped by my close women friends and mentors. How we do this for each other, as women. Most of my close women friends live far away but that doesn't seem to matter to the strength of the bond. It's umbilical. That matrix is within, the ground we move from.

I went through my decks and looked at some of my favorite representations of The Empress. In all of them she is associated with abundance, fruition, fertility, the earth, children, the moon, beauty, creativity. One depiction that speaks strongly to me is Pamela Eakins' version from Tarot of the Spirit.

The Empress ~ Tarot of the Spirit by Pamela Eakins

Will you come next, Sun?
Come through my leafy Door?
Come to cast your precious
silky silver rays across
the grove of new and sacred cypress
and leafy wreathlets strung with strands
of glistening
pearls; webs of dew;
furry creatures, cold and wet
cooing in the fields where the gold 
and cobalt lapis ether: Night Sky--
so recently laid upon me
with all his jewels--ruby/diamond/aqua--
glistening down
like so many wonders
caressing, holding, every drape and fold
of my smoky emerald gown
while I gave birth to all
that was, is, and ever shall be
things of beauty, tenderness
pelican and eagle--first to come--
guarded the entrance 
of cave/womb/home

come to heart
and illuminate this Birth.

This poem to The Empress by Pamela Eakins evokes so many of the strands that are woven into The Empress. She writes, 'the key at this time is to remember that imagination is everything.' There is such expansive energy in this phrase, power and receptivity both, which is, of course, the essence of The Empress herself. Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it, writes Goethe. This quote is one that my mother put up on our fridge when I was a girl so that we'd see it regularly. It moved her greatly and now all these decades later her impulse to frame that quote with importance still holds. And that, too, is The Empress, inspiration combined with manifestation. She is Sovereignty in its feminine form, sovereignty as abundance, as fecundity, as the strength of the creative impulse, the ripe pulsing earth of each moment.

The Empress ~ RiderWaiteSmith Tarot

Eakin's version is a much more watery Empress than traditionally seen in the RWS deck. And yet the Earth is solidly there in the greening fields beside her, in the roses and doves, the lilies around her head, the Venus glyph, her subtly pregnant belly and her barefeet. The swirl of energy comes to rest in and as her.

These days whenever she appears in a reading for me the words 'self-care' are some of the first to arise. On this day to honor The Empress energy in our lives, I'm taking some time to reflect, breathe and cultivate little areas of beauty throughout the day, for myself and for my family. I'm pausing to feel my feet on the ground, the pulse in my belly, to love up the children in my life, both human and animal, and to give thanks to all the women in my life who have mid-wifed various parts of the woman I am today.

Mother's Day blessings to all you wonderful women out there!

Alliance of the Incomplete

Temperance ~ Tarot of the Spirit by Pamela Eakins

direction and persistence
art perception integration
alliance of the incomplete
with that which completes
via
a journey to the soul's interior
on black and white steeds

balancing deeds with thought
and thought with that which-is-not
yet manifest
in order to discover the hidden stone
of wizards
both rigid and elastic
that which will temper and modify
vibrations of the Universe at will

the secret to this magic
is to journey to the center of the Earth
by Water.

Pamela Eakins's poem to this Major Arcana card inspired me to deepen with the card from my daily three-card draw.

It is the second card, after the High Priestess and Empress, in which water figures prominently. I think of the HP as the source, the originator of those waters, the oracular consciousness trickling down through the Majors to find its way into the far reaches of some of the Minors, trickling through the Timeless into the Temporal, trickling down through the collective awareness into individual awareness.

Temperance is alive with water. The sense that depth healing unfolds only with an awareness of the cosmic consciousness we are all swimming in, healing as the visceral experience of how we live and move and have our being as the oceanic magnificence of interdependence. Emotional aridity leads us here, spiritual thirst, the sere desert of despair all lead us to these sacred waters. They are the baptismal doorways ushering us towards the threshold of the unfathomable.

Water is life. Is movement, adjustment, adaptation, regulation. It always finds its level.

And Temperance asks this of us, asks of us a continual adjusting, balancing, righting of the self amidst the flux and flow of Life. This ability to dance, to fine-tune, to move in accordance with the moment is the essence of stability, it is the clear center holding, the still point of the turning world.

There are so many polarities here, the sun and moon, the subtle lemniscate, the figure's feet--one in the green of the earth the other on the blue of the water. No arms on this figure means a different kind of balance is needed, an inner calibrating. Somatically I feel this in my sacral chakra, that center of gravity within. Interestingly, it's referred to as the water center.

The places where I can't flow, where rigidity and stasis abound, where an excess of energy resides, where imbalance flourishes are the places Temperance is speaking to. The rest of the reading presents me with interesting possibilities for powerful and life-altering healing.

Tarot of the Spirit by Pamela Eakins

Temperance * Two of Water ~ Sacred Cord * The Tower

The Tower has been following me around for a couple of months now and here it has shown up again today. Purification by Fire. Goodbye personal structures, patterns, familiar refuges, isolation and conditioned responses. Hello ambiguity, mutability, mutuality and blinding divine Light. Hello Liberation! I feel like a had a Tower moment last weekend. It was disturbing on a depth level and will have ramifications in daily reality. But at its root it has to do with the potential for great healing, with a recognition of that Sacred Cord in the Two of Water.

That card always prompts the question for me, Will we allow God to see us through others people's eyes? It mirrors Temperance in many ways, the blending of opposites in the name of accord, of agreement, of equanimity. All these are qualities associated with healing, with coming into balance. Indeed the lemniscate seen so subtly in Temperance appears very obviously here encircling the two figures at the top of the card, a reminder that Temporal exists within the larger context of the Timeless.


This is a powerful trio of cards that feels very relevant. I don't feel out of my Tower situation quite yet but seeing Temperance and the Two of Water preceding it is a reminder that God wants all of me in the name of Healing, of wholeness.

Bud and Bloom

'Writing Begins with Breath' by Laraine Herring

And the day came when when the risk it took to remain tightly closed in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to bloom.

The above quote by Anais Nin has been making the online rounds again recently. I can't remember when I first encountered it but it spoke deeply to my inner landscape. However familiarity breeds, if not discontent then, at the very least a lack of imagination. I stopped feeling its beauty at some point. Today though I find the quote as the opening to a chapter in Writing begins with Breath. And I'm being asked to go deeper with it, with the experience of risk.

Before continuing I drew the card, Compassion, another widely used word these days. 'Be a force for quiet compassion', the card suggests. On their own, Risk and Compassion can easily slip into trite, over prescribed words of advice, empty of heart, of the sinew and synapse that make them a breathing reality. But together something magical happens. What if being a force for quiet compassion took shape around risk? Around daring to speak and move from a place of heart no matter the outcome?

Art of Attention Cards ~  Elena Brower

We can't map out the inner world ahead of time. That is the nature and magic of the inner world. But we can dive deeply and consciously into its terrain as travelers on a holy pilgrimage. And like all good pilgrims, to complete the journey we must share what was risked. Be it through the medium of writing, dance, art, storytelling, through whatever voice is able to convey the language and body of the wild soul. Sharing in this way becomes the lamp posts for others, the encouragement that says, risk yields heart.

Laraine Herring, author of the book, says, As you explore, reflect, and express what you're finding, you'll be shown new things. 'Oh, I thought I was done with that,' doesn't really exist in there. There's always a level beneath. That 'level beneath' is what I like to think of as the silence that continues to inform what's being expressed. It keeps me listening, watching, experiencing. It keeps me engaged with wonder, with the question. Bringing it forth into the light to share is a potential river where risk and compassion can meet.

The section of the book finishes with a simple, somatic exercise which highlights beautifully, Risk and Compassion, which brings them out of the conceptual realm and into the breathing body of truth. It's a quiet and strengthening way to begin to engage with the reality of these powerful qualities as they live in our own body.

Lie down on your back, knees up if that's more comfortable. Allow your arms to rest at your sides, palms up. Close your eyes. Use an eye pillow if you like. Lie here as long as you like. It is a place of deep relaxation and awareness. You are still, but awake.

Why? This posture helps stimulate the imagination. And being on your back, your heart, which is the home of compassion, is open, allowing you to experience both vulnerability and surrender. In this place of safe openness, of trust, you can dare to risk.