A Midnight Meeting with my Grandmother

A few nights ago I dreamt of my maternal grandmother - or, perhaps it's more accurate to say that she came to visit me in my sleep. It wasn't a long dream, per se, but it was poignant, particularly because it is the first time that I've ever dreamt of Dorothy, who died when I was five years old.

In the dream her figure was not solid, but ethereal; only partly there, like a spirit. I stood in front of her and wrapped my arms around hazy form saying, "I never had the chance to hug you, as an adult." I asked her if she had any messages for my mother, and she gave me two. Unfortunately, upon waking I couldn't remember the second. I did recall the majority of the first, and when I wrote to my mom to tell her, she replied that it was the same message that her morning reading had given her. That was nice to hear.

I pulled a few cards to explore this experience:

Pagan Otherworlds Tarot

1: My grandmother's presence

Page of Cups. A perfect symbol of a message-bearer, a speaker through the liminal realms of dreamtime.

2: Her essential message to me

9 of Pentacles. I felt this to be both encouragement and acknowledgement of where I am, and where I'm headed. I felt that she was telling me that she's proud of me.

3: Additional energy

2 of Cups. Love.

Crow Mother: Initiation (and a Tarot Spread)

I had to make a leadership decision at work recently that was as necessary as it was troubling. It threw me off balance for several days preceding and following the main event. And as supportive as everyone was about it, I still felt rather alone in the aftermath of the experience, when all was said and done. I didn't know how to process the residual moodiness I was experiencing, and I ended up designing a spread to help get my head and spirit around it all:

(In Case of Emergency) Spread:

1) How I'm feeling

2) Nurture this

3) Express this

Dark Goddess Tarot; Ellen Lorenzi-Prince

I decided to use the Dark Goddess Tarot, which had been calling my name for a few days. The cards were:

1) How I'm feeling: 2 of Air (inverted)

2) Nurture this: 8 of Air

3) Express this: 2 of Water (inverted)

The first thing that stood out to me was Crow Mother in the central position of the line of three cards. Crows have caught my attention quite a bit lately; everywhere I go I see them flying, hear them cawing, watch them calmly perched in treetops or on power lines. They have come to feel like patient and ever-present friends, and I find them comforting. Seeing the Crow Mother as the anchor card hit home the sense that the crow is passing through my life as a sort of "spirit bird," serving as an usher through a challenging time of change and uncertainty.

To move back to the first card, the 2 of Air in an inverted position (and especially with Athena ruling here) reflected my feeling of being at war with myself. I had a very divided mind, and rather than finding peace with it, I was feeling quite at odds with my own choice. Should I have done it? Did I act too soon? When I passed the previous month or so through my mind, recounting all of the contributing circumstances, I knew I'd made the right decision. And yet I found little comfort in that.

Crow Mother represents initiation, and in the position of "Embrace This," she encourages me to understand and accept the choice I made as an initiatory process, a necessary aspect of my new leadership role. Initiations are not supposed to be comfortable; they are often jarring, full of mystery, of the unknown. By living through them the initiate achieves new levels of understanding, is able - perhaps "invited" is the better word - to integrate new knowledge and perspectives. I hadn't previously thought of this as a rite of passage, but indeed it was, and there was some comfort in understanding it in that light.

Interestingly, as I was flipping through one of my gem and mineral books in search of an "initiation stone," another stone listing caught my eye: pallasite. This immediately connected me to Athena (Pallas Athena), and to the 2 of Air. Upon reading the entry for this meteorite, it turns out that one of its principal functions is that of helping to calm the emotional body. Very fitting, I'd say.

Unfortunately I didn't have any pallasite on hand, but I decided to pull out a new piece of one of my favorite stones - black tourmaline - that I'd just acquired the week before (you can never really have too much of this one!). Black tourmaline has a soothing, relieving energy that feels very good to me. And I realized, as I was gazing down at it in my hand, that it looked quite a bit like a crow's head.

Crow's head Black Tourmaline

The final card in the reading was Lorelei, the 2 of Water, and it had appeared inverted as the 2 of Air had. In the position of "Express This," it urged me to release the sorrow I was holding onto regarding the decision I'd had to make; to talk about it; to call on the ever present and all-abiding pool of universal love to help heal from its painful after-effects. A close friend to whom I've spoken about this has commented several times that it's very much like breaking up with someone. It's an astute observation. Lorelei was a siren whose beauty and hypnotic song was said to lure entranced sailors to their deaths against the jagged rocks. In a way, I could relate. I want to always help, honor, and nurture people, so coming to terms with having to make a decision that I knew would inevitably cause someone pain was (and still is) quite difficult to manage.

The sum of this line of three is 12, associated with the Hanged Man, a card that has appeared for me on a couple of occasions of late. Sacrifice, evolution, release, surrender.

In addition, I find the layout of numbers in this spread to be intriguing - 2 - 8 - 2. Twos relate to duality and choice, while eights correspond to change, strength, and personal power. The willingness to embrace difficult choices for the heart and mind provides great fertilizer for transformation.

Onward and upward.

Lovers and 2 of Cups: Valentine's Day

I've been busy this past week, and so sleepy, that I haven't felt up to making time for a blog post, and I'm well overdue. Ironically, the day I feel I have some time to set aside for this is Valentine's Day, where so many people are running around town frenetically trying to find last-minute gifts for loved ones. I should know. On my way to work this morning I stopped off at the local superstore (my least favorite place in the world to go) in order to pick up some chocolate for the kids for when they get home from school. As I was perusing the long aisles of heart-shaped boxes, a man rushed by me, his hands full of pink baskets, flowers, cards, and candy. He said to me "I've been working all week from 9am-Midnight and haven't had time to go shopping, so once again I'm here at the last minute!" He told me he worked at a restaurant and they'd been booked solid the entire week for Valentine's dinners. I reassured him that the fact that he'd made time to work this in to his busy schedule should count for something.  He asked if I'd seen the over-sized stuffed bears, and I said no, and he rushed away into the vacuous space of the commercial wonderland.

People harp on Valentine's Day for being "too fabricated," or structured to empty people's pockets of hard-earned cash. I don't feel that way, but then I tend to take from each holiday what works for me, and leave the rest….also happen to adore boxed chocolate, so it works out okay for me! In fact to be honest I don't mind buying up my goodies on the day after, when everything is marked down. Score!

So, love. Yesterday I had the fortune to meet with a local reader-friend for a 3-hour session of playing with Tarot and Lenormand, and two cards that kept popping up in our readings were the 2 of Cups and the Lovers - so fitting for the occasion, don't you think? These are two cards that have shown up a lot in my personal readings over the past year, a combination of redirecting my path towards something I love, something that feeds my soul, and which as a result is bringing my being back into alignment. But I want to put aside these meanings about "choice," "alignment," etc., because today is Love Day and I want to talk about how these cards represent our most sacred feeling. For this purpose I'm using two images from the Anna K Tarot, which I do NOT own, but which my reader friend does and used for me yesterday. (Very fitting, too, as my blogging friend Ellen used this deck for a post yesterday, and every time she does so, it makes me think I should add it to my collection!).

I was stuck by these two cards yesterday, in this particular deck, because of how the artist seems to have connected them:

Anna K Tarot - Llewellyn Publishing

The 2 of Cups shows a young couple in what could be the throes of early love, or a developing and exciting romance. They are demurely engaged, giving the impression that they're really trying to find some privacy so they can feel free to express their feelings for each other away from prying eyes. The flowers are in bloom behind them, a sign of happiness and perhaps the expansion of love they may soon experience.  Some people consider the 2 of Cups a "soul mates" card, and I don't necessarily see it that way. As a 2, this card is about new love, flirtation, mutual attraction, which may or may not become something deep and long-lasting.

Anna K Tarot - Llewellyn Publishing

Then we have the Lovers, and this would indeed be a card I'd consider to be more indicative of a deep connection that moves past flirtation and fleeting passion and onto something more meaningful and significant. In this image we see what appears to be the same couple from the 2 of Cups, yet now they've aged quite a bit. They're no longer the young lovers trying to hide behind a curtain for privacy. They sit closely together holding hands, enjoying each other's company, content and secure in the loving friendship that has developed after many long years of being together, learning about and from each other, forging the slow and profound bond of loving coupledom. The flowers have expanded and filled out along with their relationship.

Now back to the definitions I wanted to avoid….. most relationships start with the 2 of Cups, and it takes the careful cultivation, flexibility, open mind, dedication, and above all the right pairing of two people to reach and then maintain the Lovers relationship. It ain't easy! Not all Lovers relationships work out, and their demise can be deeply painful. Those that do last require an even flow of those attributes, an alignment of core values, a sprinkling of grace…. and above all, a choice. A choice to stick it out, work through the problems, grow from the pain, and as a result come to care more deeply for each other than either partner might have imagined was possible.

So here is to love in all its messy glory - all love: 2 of Cups and Lovers, 10 of Cups and 6 of Cups, the Sun, Ace of Cups, and even the 3 of Cups of joyful friendships. Finally, a special shout out to the 3 of Swords, the bittersweet agony that is at times a consequence of having had the courage to be open to the blessing of giving and receiving love.

Happy Valentine's Day.

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Uniting Poles: Dragon, Cat and Sow

This year has been one of many changes, some of which I mentioned in my Samhain spread blog post. I sense the transition happening subtly (although sometimes it is very apparent, and gives me little surprises), under the surface, like an underground river flowing. In recent readings, the Lovers, Chariot and 2 of Cups have come up quite a bit for me.  What these cards all have in common is a sense of union between two aspects, or elements.  The Lovers and 2 of Cups relate to harmonizing those contrasting elements, while the Chariot is about harnessing that energy and bringing it forth into the world to achieve goals, and make things happen.  I've been sitting with those cards, pondering what those meanings might signify for me, and the truth is that that meaning has felt somewhat veiled, a little hazy and hard to put my finger on.

Last night I decided to forgo the Tarot and pull out my Druid Animal Oracle deck which I haven't worked with in a while.  I felt the desire to access the energy and wisdom of animals.  So I shuffled and cut, and laid out three cards: Air Dragon, Cat, and Sow.

Druid Animal Oracle
P. and S. Carr-Gomm/Will Worthington
Touchstone 1995

When I saw the Air Dragon I thought that was interesting, because I've never pulled that before, and lately I've been getting a lot of Swords (particularly the King and Queen) which are air cards.  While the Tarot swords are about intellect and decision-making, the Air Dragon is about spiritual journeying and spirit communication and, very interestingly, visitation.  It's interesting because this Dragon is also about flashes of insight, those lightening bolts that change the way you understand the world and the possibilities before you.  This reminds me of the Blasted Oak (from Wildwood Tarot) which has also been a significant card for me lately, because it also incorporates the idea of the sudden flash of insight that sparks significant change.  And the Blasted Oak/Tower has been meaningful for me in terms of my spiritual journey, so there were some synchronicities there.  

The Sow is a nurturing card.  The Sow is about connecting to the abundance of nature, the physical aspects of our nature as living beings.  The image shows a sow herding her group of piglets (is that what baby wild pigs are called??). The ground is strewn with morsels of food, and the background is lush with ripe wheat and vegetation.  As it relates to sensuality and fertility as well, this is like the Empress card in animal form. Very earthy and loving.

Finally, the center card was Cat.  Cat is considered to be an animal that connects to the spirit realm, and can see and communicate with both sides of the veil that separates the worlds. So it has one foot in this world, and one in the other. Another interesting element of the cat is its observation skills - it will sit and listen and watch quietly, only making its move when it's sure everything has come together in the right way. This also reminds me of the Wildwood Tarot Page of Stones (Lynx, which is also a wild cat). All of these meanings hold significance for me, and in fact the Page of Stones/Pentacles has also come up a lot lately in my personal readings.  I do feel I'm exploring a new wave of life, taking time to observe and learn about the best way to move forward in the material world with spiritual matters.

So after spending some time pondering this series of cards, I suddenly realized that it makes perfect sense! On the left the Air Dragon represents new insights and spiritual journeys, while on the right side the Sow represents our physical connection to nature and sensuality. The Cat is the bridge, the unifier, of both of these opposites.  And when I realized that, suddenly the Lovers and 2 of Cups and even the Chariot, made sense.  

When I was young I was very involved in spirituality and had a lot of meaningful experiences that have impacted me indelibly.  But as a child, spiritual experiences are ungrounded - in many ways you can't really live your spirituality in a balanced way until you learn how to live in the world.  And that's precisely what I did.  I had my first child, finished my college degree, got married, spent many years involved in developing a career, had two more kids (and few things are more grounding than having and raising babies!), completed my graduate degree. I distanced myself from more intentional spiritual practices, and really immersed myself in Life.  Six or seven years later (ending with this current year) I experienced a series of events that have led me back to spiritual practice and a renewal of my path, which has been wonderful and very much like "coming home." So I've gone through two major phases of life - one very airy/watery, and one very earthy - and now this year I'm learning how to integrate them so that both are equally important and balanced parts of my life, and who I am.  And that newly established and building inner-balance is impacting how I move forward in the world, and where my path is leading me.