Considering Home

This morning as I was shuffling for my daily draw, the 10 of Pentacles flipped over. This is a card that has popped up for me several times of late, and for good reason!

10 of Pentacles is a card that brings to mind the family legacy, our material connection to our ancestors, the traditions we are raised with and that we sometimes pass down to our own children. This is a card known, depending on the circumstance, to represent marriage (the material manifestation of loving union), trust funds, home purchase, and financial comfort.

In this card image we see a happy-looking couple in a partial embrace, watching abundance flow down toward them in an azure waterfall. They look content, satisfied - their emotional satisfaction courses over the rich, earthy support structure of the rolling hills. They have everything that they need for economic stability and can truly enjoy the little things in life (like casually standing outside naked, for instance ;-).

Navigators Tarot of the Mystic SEA
Julia Turk

I have been considering what "home" means lately. To some degree I truly believe that home is where the heart is; it doesn't matter how ample your digs are, as long as they are enough. I feel at home in my current house with my husband and children. My heart is certainly there. I also feel, in a different way, that home is where my mother lives, several states away to the north. It's the house that I grew up in for many years, and it's the house I return to for visits and vacations. It becomes the anchor of the extended family, like the nest we never entirely abandon because the roots of our hearts are still connected to the foundation that is there. Now our children are spending time there with their grandparents, an entirely 10 of Pentacles affair. My mother sends me pictures of our daughter helping to make shortbread in the kitchen, of our oldest child taking the dog for a walk, of our little son making his bed in the room that belonged to his aunt so many years ago. There is cohesion and abundance in all of these things.

What is home to you?
Where is home?
Who is home to you?
How do you know that you've come home?

Samhain Blog Hop: Catching Fireflies in Glass Jars

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Happy Halloween, Happy Samhain!

Welcome to the 2014 Samhain Blog Hop! Please use the links at the top or bottom of this post to navigate through the other wonderful blogs in this circle.

Louise Underhill, from Priestess Tarot, asked us to describe (using our cards, naturally) a guest that we'd like to invite to a Samhain tea. It could be someone real or imaginary, someone known to us or someone famous. I always struggle with these sorts of scenarios, kind of like when someone asks you to name your hero, or your favorite music group of all time.

But this time I thought it would be nice to invite the spirit of my grandma Dorothy (my mother's mother) to spend some time with me on Samhain eve. I have fond memories of my grandma, though they be few in number, and connecting with her is something meaningful to me since I was never able to properly know her in life. I decided to pull three cards from my Golden Tarot deck, and in addition I, as usual, took a peek at the card at the bottom of the deck for an underlying theme or energy of the spread. 

Golden Tarot - Kat Black
U.S. Games Systems

This bottom card was: 6 of Cups. My, how fitting! Having tea with my grandmother's memory is precisely what this card is all about. I'm traveling down memory lane, remembering aspects of my young childhood, those that she was a part of…Life was certainly simpler then, and the image on this card could well be me and my sister in Dorothy's back yard, a place we spent a lot of time. The tree could be Dorothy's cherry tree; I remember the excitement with which we would pluck the fruit from its branches when ripe (even then, the notion of harvesting one's own food was great fun for me!). Now on to the central questions….

1) How would Dorothy describe herself? 2 of Cups
2) What would she like to talk about? 10 of Coins
3) What messages might she have for me? 10 of Swords

Golden Tarot - Kat Black
U.S. Games Systems

The first card filled my heart with a strong sense of understanding of the love that she carried within. Dorothy died when I was five years old. She had a difficult life, marrying twice (the first at a young age) and bearing six children across the span of it. I know that towards the end of her life she struggled quite a bit with relationships; I think she was just tired. My mom told me that when she was pregnant with me, Dorothy had told her, "I don't think I'm capable of loving any more people." But when I came into the world, she found that she was quite able to open her heart to me. I know that my grandmother adored her children, no matter how many steep obstacles she had to contend with along the way. The Two of Cups speaks to the healing and wholeness offered by love, and I hope that she has found that for herself. She is certainly still loved, even in memory.

The second card actually made me laugh a bit, oh my clever grandma….. She wants to talk about the powerful legacy of the family home, a very pertinent topic for this moment. One of the things I recall most about being in my grandmother's house was the activity. When I was a child we lived in Cheshire, Connecticut, and our own home was right next door to my grandmother's house, so there was constant communication and interaction. Many of our extended family lived nearby, so we often found ourselves playing and eating with our cousins, aunts, and uncles. I distinctly remember a group of us playing with GI Joe figurines in Dorothy's dusty attic. I remember catching fireflies in glass jars on summer evenings, and hunting for the perfect twig in the grass; if it passed inspection, an adult would tie a string to both ends to make our very own bow. I even remember tearing across the back yard on my Big Wheels trike, feeling pretty adventurous and cool. There is something special and "right" in family togetherness. Oftentimes it revolves around a central home, belonging perhaps to a matriarch or patriarch, that serves as the anchor of family unity. It's the nucleus, it is the hearth of the family heart. And it's the keeper of that precious legacy that is the root of a family's strength. We had that in Connecticut, and we don't have that now in the same way. My grandmother died long ago. We moved to Michigan and created a new life. Now I am living with my own family in Florida, and in these ways we continue to spread ourselves thin, stretching the energetic ties of our kin like rubber bands across vast stretches of terrain. Mambo Vye Zo has written about this sort of tie, the family "Oversoul", and says this about it:

Families often share an Oversoul that can have far reaching results.  If an Oversoul is something that is shared by two or more people, then a Family Oversoul is a deeper bond than mere pairing can create.  You share this Oversoul with your mother and father, as well as your siblings.  This Oversoul is the family vibe that runs through you all.  It descends from your grandparents' Oversoul or even further back, giving you a piece of their relationship with which you begin your own.

As I sit contemplating what the 10 of Coins means to me in the context of this Samhain visit with my grandmother, it is precisely this sense of our family's Oversoul that feels sharply defined, a thin yet steely vibration of ancestral connection threading its way through my deepest core. I am filled with a potent sense of urgency to relieve those deep stretches in our shared, energetic bond.

Just a few days ago my mother broached the topic of our coming back "home." Not to visit, but to stay. It's something we've thought of before, but you know how it goes - there are positives and negatives to everything, and in the end it's easier to stay put. But it goes beyond just missing each other. There is something deeper there, and the 10 of Coins feels like my grandmother's voice underscoring that topic. It's about restoring the core strength of the family, little by little. Giving our children grandparents to know intimately, to make memories with - there is no replacement for that. And there's no excuse for taking that away from them. With this card my grandmother is reminding me of what I had back then as a child, and encouraging me to make that a critical focal point as we seriously consider our next steps forward.

Photo Credit: Chantal Steyn

Not surprisingly, my grandmother's message to me is the 10 of Swords. This card, and the Death card, have been my followers of late. I know that big, at times painful, change is unfolding in my life at present. It sucks, I will be honest about that, and I'm certainly exhausted. But there's something therapeutic in catharsis. My grandmother is reassuring me of something I've sensed for a while now - that there is something new on the way. Although at times I'm not entirely sure just what it is, I do know that the only way to get there is to simply let go. Should we embrace the message of the previous card, there will certainly be some poignant 10 of Swords qualities to the transition. The truth is that there is something reassuring about knowing that all of the challenges and pain and difficulties are leading somewhere positive. That at its foundation this period is like birthing pains, that deep, primal pressure, the gasps when you start to wonder if you'll ever make it to the end….and then you do. And in that moment you realize that the fruit of your labor was so well worth it that you'd do it all over again. Yes, that is a bit what this feels like. And what a perfect meditation for Samhain, where we embrace death, rejoicing in the knowledge that a new life cycle is on its way.

So this Samhain I embrace and honor my grandmother Dorothy. I invite her to connect with me, to chat with me, to pass her wisdom on to me. I open my heart to receive her presence with gratitude and love.

Happy and blessed Samhain to you all!

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Tarot's Take on Black Friday

I was hanging out with my kids this evening thinking about what the stores must have been like for those people brave enough to go shopping. I definitely understand the desire to save money, but this day has always both intrigued and horrified me. I have gone out on Black Friday afternoons in the past and found a few unexpected gifts that did seem like great deals. It's never been madness. I figure the crazy people have probably already finished their trips long before 2pm hits, and are snoring happily in their beds by the time I've worked up the courage to show my mug in public. So, for fun, I decided to ask the Tarot to tell me about this extension of Thanksgiving, and here is what it said (using the Halloween Tarot by Karin Lee and Kipling West):

Ten Pumpkins (Pentacles):

The piñata scene brings to mind the businesses luring buyers in with the idea of cheap prices (some of which are apparently not great deals, in reality). The pumpkins in the tree seem symbolic of the crowds rushing out to buy, buy, buy - some enjoying themselves, others perhaps a bit unhappy (maybe because they realized that it was a bad idea to leave the house, or because they missed out on that amazing TV deal). The black cat certainly looks a bit nervous. Pentacles (Pumpkins) are related to wealth, and the 10 is really the pinnacle of comfortable, family-oriented money (and in a way, giving gifts)...and well, Black Friday is all about spending that money in preparation (in part) for Christmas!

9 Ghosts (Cups) reversed:

My first thought when I saw this card was: "excess." Over doing it. Sitting on (or wrapping your entire body around)  the new Xbox at Radio Shack so that noone else gets their grubby mitts on it. You think you're happy, that scoring that sweet deal was a dream come true, but for some it may be an empty happiness, and despite the low price you still may have just used part of your rent money to pay for it.

Queen Pumpkins (Pentacles) reversed:

This is the person who's too focused on the good deals, on saving serious money, to be able to properly enjoy the true spirit of the holiday. She/he won't feel complete until they've driven across town to get those Deerfoam slippers that are marked down by 50% - for three hours only!!  This person may be almost too anxious to provide amazing loot under the tree. The intention might be good, but s/he's over-concerned with the idea that s/he's getting a great deal. This is the person who doesn't nurture themself by getting a good night's sleep because they've spent 39 hours in a tent outside the doors to Best Buy, or because they woke up at midnight to start their shopping excursion.

Okay, there you have it, Black Friday in a Tarot nutshell! I hope the shoppers did well, the small businesses made a nice profit, and that I won't see any stories about Wal-Mart trampling deaths when I check the news later ;-)

Those Little Somethings

The Tarot deck that I learned on was the Golden Tarot by Liz Dean. The pips are not illustrated, in the Marseilles tradition.  At the time I really enjoyed that challenge - I couldn't rely on an image to help tell the story - I had to memorize the potential meanings in each card.  So needless to say I studied hard and really learned the "book" meanings (all 234 of them, if you randomly decide that each card can mean at least three different things - and of course there are more potential meanings than even that, so it's a tame estimate). Later I learned reversals, though in a slightly more organic way, bringing the total potential meanings to somewhere around 468.  Yes, what a rock star. :-/

Then I delved into the world of Tarot decks with full illustrations, and I opened myself up not just to commonly understood meanings, but to intuitive meanings, which effectively exploded my Tarot world, kind of like the Big Bang. Now, while I am happy to read with a deck without illustrated pips, I am truly "fed" by those that do have full images.

Why?  It's those little "somethings" in each card that spark my intuition, that bring amazing doses of clarity and insight, that penetrate to the heart of what's going on in a client's situation.  I love decks that have "a lot going on" because there is a lot there for my intuition to latch onto, and of course meanings then can change radically with the same card from reading to reading, which makes each card so incredibly rich (not unlike a living person, I suppose!).

When I do readings, I consider the traditional array of meanings (or sometimes I don't have time to consider, because the meaning is immediately apparent), but I also go further and see what the card art has to offer - and sometimes the art itself is more important, and I throw out the traditional meanings altogether. For instance, the other day I did a reading for someone who wanted to know where their new path was taking them.  I pulled the 10 of Pentacles from the Deviant Moon deck (Patrick Valenza) and the typical significance (a stable home, inheritance, marriage, security) was nearly meaningless.  It was the image on the card that gave me what I needed to pass on to this client, which was that he was currently in an apprenticeship period of his life, but he was heading to a time when he would eventually become the teacher.  The Pentacles were about spiritual riches, as opposed to material riches, and spoke more of grounding spirituality in the world, making it accessible to people.  In fact later, when I was doing a numerological assessment of that reading, the Hierophant showed up, which fit nicely, as the Hierophant is, in a sense, grounded spirituality - a bridge between the sacred and the mundane - and also represents teaching and learning. Now it may well be that his path will lead him to economic stability, but that was the least relevant element of the card meaning in this case.

Deviant Moon Tarot - 10 of Pentacles
Patrick Valenza/U.S. Games

My own mentor prefers the Halloween Tarot (Karin Lee, Kipling West) because there are so many little details that pop out at her.  I own that deck and enjoy it quite a bit, but I've been quite bowled over with the Deviant Moon so far, in this respect.  It's funny that I'd spent quite a period of time avoiding this deck because I felt it was creepy, or just not my style of artwork. And yet when I took the leap, I discovered yet another whole new, profound world of possibilities, filled to the brim with little somethings that speak clearly to me (all decks out there provide something valuable, and a little different - I guess that's partly why Tarot deck collections accrue!).  It's an amazing deck, I'll just say that :)

Alright. Time for breakfast.