Bast and the 8 of Cups

I normally keep pretty close track of the moon cycles, but the past month has been pretty busy between vacation, driving across the country, and getting back up to speed at work. Yesterday I kept feeling antsy each time I would walk past my bóveda (altar), antsy with the drive to give it a thorough cleaning. I normally do this kind of thing perhaps once a month, and usually on a Friday. But I finally couldn't take it any more, and decided to make it happen on a Wednesday night. I dusted, changed the cloths, rearranged things, lit some candles, burned some herbs. When all was said and done I leaned back on my bed and decided to have a look at my moon cycle app - lo and behold, it was the night of the New Moon! And then it all made sense: the New Moon is a time of releasing the old, and embracing the new - even in mundane ways. I was feeling the lunar nudge to clean my space up, and it was too keen a call to resist.

It was also time to pull a card for the week ahead, so I decided to combine my weekly draw with a New Moon draw. Again, I've used the Morgan Greer deck in combination with the Goddess Knowledge cards, and pulled:

8 of Cups - Bast

It's interesting that the 8 of Cups has come up....yet again! This is turning into one of my cards of the season, and is entirely appropriate considering all of the inner and outer fluctuations that have been occurring over the past several months. It's a welcome card, because it speaks of going on a soul journey, of a willingness to release the hold on "what is" in order to open up to "what could be."

Bast, also called Bastet, is an Egyptian goddess with quite a long history. While she originally was associated with the sun, later Greek influence aligned her energies to some degree with Artemis, so she also came to develop a connection with the moon. No matter what, she is the cat- or lion-faced goddess of strength and wisdom, of independence and fertility, of protection and joy. All of these qualities seem deeply appropriate for a soul journey. In fact I love how in the relationship between the cards, we see the red-hooded figure walking off toward the mountains, while Bast stands like a sentinel of the night, calling the walker forth, keeping watch over the unfolding voyage.

The card duo invites me to ponder the joy possible in being brave enough to follow my own path, to be uniquely "me," and to take the road less traveled.

Questions to consider:

What satisfies you? 
What do you, or could you, do to embrace authenticity in your life? 
How do you know when it's time to break a routine and explore something new?