Creativity and Wisdom

Today I am officially back from vacation. I had two weeks full of travel and spending time with family and old friends. My two littlest children are back with us at home, and our oldest will come back in a few weeks. All I really need today is a cup of good coffee and a quite place to relax....

Yesterday evening, about a mile past the Florida-Georgia line, and 3 hours from home, I drew two cards for the week ahead (being very careful that they wouldn't fly out the window).

The 3 of Pentacles fell from the deck (hey, I just pulled this card last week!). It's perfectly fitting as today I headed back to work! And in reality, the rest of July in terms of my job will be pretty packed, but as I've been on vacation for nearly two weeks, there are a lot of details I need to iron out in regard to my schedule and overall workload. I will be relying on others to help make things flow as smoothly as possible, so I expect a lot of discussions and arrangements to be organized over the next week. Fortunately I received some positive news this morning about a course I'm teaching which will lighten my responsibilities, and it wouldn't be possible without a little help from my friends. So that's all well and good.

Morgan Greer Tarot; Goddess Knowledge Cards

As a follow-up I decided to draw a card from my new Goddess Knowledge deck with art by Susan Seddon-Boulet. The backstory is that my mother bought me a shaman poster by this wonderful artist when I was 12 or 13 years old, and it hung on my door for ages, until the corners were entirely ripped to pieces from the thumb tacks holding it up. I always thought it was my spirit guide - I adored that image! While I was in the north last week, I was in a shop and saw this deck and immediately purchased it. It's not meant to be used for divination, per se - rather its main purpose is to display and teach about many different goddesses across a variety of world cultures. However I've found that it's wonderful for meditation and guidance, and have been using it quite a lot lately!

I drew: Athena.

Athena is the goddess of wisdom and war, and battles are won with clear thinking and good strategy. These are elements that will be important for me this week as I jump back into the work circus. I don't want to feel overwhelmed, and Athena's creative depths, her rational mind, her confidence and skill will help me to navigate my path ahead. One other aspect of this card speaks to me not so much from Athena herself, but from this rather unusual depiction of the goddess. Here she appears rather child-like, surrounded by delicate phases of the moon, and framed by a serpent. She looks to be clothed in autumn leaves. What strikes me most powerfully about this image is the connection to nature. One of the things that I was very aware of over the past couple of vacation weeks is just how much nature calms and nourishes me. So in another sense, I hear Athena telling me to draw on nature's healing and revitalizing energy any time that I might start to feel stressed - to sit outside, to go for a walk, to watch the stars in the night sky.

I like that there is a creative element to both of these cards. We often think of creativity in terms of forming something new and original, but sometimes it's not about being unique in the product we create, rather in the way we approach our work. Success through creative strategizing will be my motto for the week ahead!