A New Moon Reading

For day 13 of the October Shadow Work challenge, the wrangler, Mnomquah, tasked participants with a New Moon reading:

The positions (and the cards I drew for myself) are as follows:

1) The Light - what you know and accept about yourself: Chariot
2) The Shadow - what is hidden from you about yourself: 10 of Swords
3) Why you fear your Shadow - what is preventing you from seeing or accepting your Shadow: Strength
4) Why you should embrace your Shadow - what are the positive sides of the Shadow that would benefit you? 7 of Swords reversed
5) How to integrate the Shadow into the Light - what steps you should take in order to accept your Shadow: 5 of Swords reversed
6) The Outcome - the possibilities if you succeed in bringing the Shadow into the Light: Sun and Judgement

Tarot of Vampyres

I have two cards for #6 because I had a "jumper" as I was thinking about that card position. So I've placed both the jumper and the additional card that I selected for that position, as partners.

As I pulled the cards the story that unfolded before me became more and more clear. I said in a previous post that each day of this challenge seems to offer a bit more detail that slowly helps me understand the bigger picture. It continues to be true here.

The fact that my shadow is represented by the 10 of Swords is very fitting. This is the card I pulled as representative of my month of October, and for this entire month I'm working each day with my shadow.

Tarot of Vampyres

I've already identified that part of this shadow work relates to reclaiming my personal power, and also that a predominant emotion that has emerged for me is sadness. When I saw the combination of the Chariot (as my light) and the 10 of Swords, I felt a very familiar sensation: that of powering past pain. The figure on the Chariot is aggressive and determined; nothing will stop him from achieving his goals. In the 10 of Swords I see (and feel) pain. This vampire woman has been knifed right in the solar plexus and lies agonizingly across a four-poster bed. It's interesting because this is often a card of being "stabbed in the back" and yet the source of my own pain often centers in the solar plexus. These cards represent two aspects of myself: the part that has experienced sharp, deep pain, and the part that insists on riding past it as swiftly as possible, hurrying away from the suffering as fast as my beast will take me; refusing to spend any more time in that dark space than is absolutely necessary. I will myself to move on because I can't bear the idea of lingering.

I've always been a very happy person. I am a peacemaker. I seek to understand and honor others. I tend to see the best in people. I am more trusting than suspicious. I want to heal others and make them happy. Joy is part of my essential nature, a core foundation of my soul. Throughout my life, from the time I was a very small child, I've had a visceral opposition to negativity, but most particularly to feelings of sadness or despair. Over a year ago I wrote a blog post for the Litha Blog Hop called "Joy and Shadows" in which I discuss how difficult it has always been for me to process sadness.

But as you grow up, you do experience pain, and some of it can feel unbearable at times. My instinct is to power past it. To distract myself through the worst of it, and to move on as quickly as possible, most especially when I feel betrayed and shamed. My desire has always been to let the difficult memories fade with time until they become nought but occasional and brief recollections of another era.

So the Chariot, my aware-self, streams past the shadow-pain of the 10 of Swords, using its pure Will to force the grief undercover.

Tarot of Vampyres

Card 3 represents what prevents me from seeing or accepting my shadow, and I pulled Strength. At first look this might seem strange: how would embodying strength, compassion, or resilience keep me from dealing with pain? And on one hand there is something to be said for the consequences of my desire to smooth things over, to bend over backwards being compassionate to the people who have hurt me, trying to understand others to the point of undervaluing my own experience. There is something potent there. But there is also another side: the Chariot, my light, is about hard control - using force and determination to get what is desired. It is externally oriented, it's about what you (and others) can see. Strength is about soft control, and it's internally oriented. In Strength, the black panther symbolizes this woman's fierce inner power, fully integrated. What that means to me is that by avoiding pain, I'm avoiding the opportunity become fully integrated with my own divine power. And that has been a major element in my shadow work.

The 7 of Swords reversed speaks to why I should embrace my shadow - the positive aspects that my shadow might afford me. This says that confronting, sitting with, accepting, working with (instead of against) my shadow is the ultimate act of honesty with myself, of reclaiming my power. It allows me to see who and what I am, to realize that I'm truly capable of making the changes that I want to see, of embodying the fiery qualities that I know I possess in my soul.

Position 5 deals with how I might integrate the shadow into the light, and I pulled the 5 of Swords reversed:

Tarot of Vampyres

I often think of this as the "bully card." What I really like about the imagery here is that in its inverted position (which is how it appeared) the prostrate girl changes positions with the demon. Upright the demon hovers over the young lady like a dark cloud, but reversed, she returns to the light. Symbolically this shows a turning of tides, a reversal of the difficult qualities of this card where the victim becomes the victor. This card suggests letting bygones be bygones, however in order to do that I need to give myself time and space to review my past. If I don't become fully aware of what I'm avoiding, it will follow me like... a shadow!.... right on into the future. The time is here to let go: have I truly forgiven my trespassers? What does it mean to "forgive and forget?" Can I forgive without forgetting, and if so, how do I keep the memory of difficult situations in my psyche without being drawn back into that pain? What does true forgiveness even look like? What shame or embarrassment still lingers in the background and how is it impacting me? How can I break free?

If I succeed in my efforts to integrate my shadow with the light, I have both Judgement and the Sun waiting for me:

Tarot of Vampyres

The Sun bounced happily out from the deck, and was interesting for two reasons: 1) according to my birth cards, the Sun is my shadow, in which case this shows that I will have literally reclaimed it, and 2) the card itself shows the essence of light and dark intertwined into a harmonious union. I decided to make a mental note of the Sun's presence, and I put it back into the deck to complete shuffling. When I finally pulled all of the cards, I was again quite impressed to see Judgement in this position #6. This is the card that represented yesterday's topic of "What I can't accept about myself." So again, this drives home the immense, powerful, and touching energies that I'm working with, and that with effort I can indeed achieve this. I decided, for curiosity's sake, to see what card was hiding behind Judgement, and lo and behold, it was none other than the Sun.

I have a lot more to say, far more to consider, and over time I'll do just that. But for now, it's tea time.