A Nine of Swords Moment Brings Helpful Insight

Lately I have been sleeping very well, which has been wonderful. Six to nine months ago I went through a period where I'd often wake up in the middle of the night, my mind would start to whirr, those fears that are wont to well up in the darkest hours would rise, and it would take an hour - sometimes even two - before I could relax enough to fall back to sleep. I'm not sure what changed, what switch flipped, but I suddenly began to sleep solidly, peacefully, and fully each night.

And then last night I had a 9 of Swords moment! At 2:40am I awoke, and started to worry. I worried about my son grinding his teeth (a really annoying family trait). I worried about bills (even though they're all under control). As I laid there I felt a tickle on my nose and was sure a bug was crawling across my face, so I shot straight up in bed, flailing my arms, and knocked the charger cord out of my phone, which then fell rattling to the floor making a sound that I was sure was the bug running away (it wasn't). Seriously. This is so comical to me right now, but I was a hot mess at 3am.

Tarot De St. Croix

So I laid back down thoroughly irritated with myself, and proceeded to think. Whenever I have these moments of insomnia I always think about Odin's advice from the Havamal, that (to paraphrase) a fool stays awake worrying all night, wakes up exhausted and has resolved nothing. I wanted to pinpoint the source of my wakefulness. I manage our finances okay. Why was I worrying about bills? Perhaps it was the weight of them that felt like a burden. I may keep things organized, but is there something more I can do? Is there a way I can be even more proactive? What the heck was I really worrying about?

A few days ago my husband asked me to do "one of those big readings" that I do for him once or twice a year. After I pulled his cards I decided to do one for myself, and I was quite interested to see the 7 of Swords appear in the position of my "current awareness." The card, from the Tarot of the Cat People, shows a somewhat unusual image of a woman surrounded by swords, looking up at the sky where a fat cat floats in an ethereal bubble. If anything, it almost feels more like the 8 of Swords (except for the floating cat!). This is often considered a card of deception, politics, strategy, even diplomacy (which is certainly on my mind in light of all of the mediation I've been doing lately!). I wanted to spend some time considering what the card meant for me, and since the depiction was non-traditional I decided to read the artist's own impression from the little white book, which described this card as representing the will and fortitude to reach one's goals. Hm. Well, that is certainly true, I thought at the time. I have a lot of goals on my plate, and every day I feel more poised to work toward achieving them. It's definitely been on my mind a lot over the past month or so.

As I was laying in bed in the early hours of morning, surrounded by darkness, thinking of yesterday's "Deep Emotions" draw from the dat Black Mermaid Man Lady oracle deck, thinking of the 7 of Swords, thinking of this nebulous source of my strange worry session, it suddenly hit me: while I am determined to achieve my goals, on some level I am afraid that no matter what I do, no matter how hard I work, I will never realize them. Whoa. That was a sharp and weighty revelation.

Tarot of the Cat People

Feelings are strange things. They are not always forthright, do not always announce their presence. Feelings can be quiet, at times even imperceptible. They can subtly influence our thoughts and responses; they can disguise themselves within a multitude of contexts, blurring our ability to identify them, to recognize them for what and why they are. As open as I am to working through my own emotional universe, to understanding myself, to engaging the dark, the light, and everything in between, sometimes emotions lurk in shadows just beneath the surface of our awareness. You have to go hunting. It was hunting that I was doing in the pre-dawn darkness when I would have preferred to be sleeping. But the search at this odd flip-side of the day provided me with powerful insight into my own psyche.

Interestingly, the "outcome" card in the reading I had done for myself was the Ace of Pentacles. What intrigued me most about this duo was the story that they told together. In the Ace of Pentacles we see that the "fat cat of unrealized dreams and goals" that once floated in the sky above the woman in the 7 of Swords is now tangible and sits quite happily on the floor beside the lady in the Ace. Now, a glowing pentacle hovers where the cat once did. The "thoughts" of the swords suit become the earthy reality of the suit of pentacles. It is a positive symbol that suggests that despite my anxieties about my ability to accomplish my dreams, the efforts I put forth will not be in vain.

This morning I decided to pull a card from the dat Black Mermaid Man Lady oracle deck, and I pulled one of the "Dreamer" cards for the second time in two days. But this morning, rather than pulling a card with a keyword, I drew one that was blank on the back. This indicates that "you already know" what the message is. And indeed, I did know. I made space to pull a card for the #tarotperspective challenge on Instagram, and instead of simply pulling a daily draw, I decided to ask: "How can I address my own fear of failure?" As I was shuffling I saw in my mind's eye the Chariot card that had been the "shadow" card of yesterday's pull. I cut the deck, turned the top card over, and it was....the Chariot!

Tarot of the Cat People; Stone Tarot; Tarot of Vampyres

This is card that I've been pulling with relative frequency for the past year, and it has ushered me through some powerfully and very positively transformative times. For the Instagram post I wrote about the Vampyres version of the Chariot (which speaks to me most):

The warrior spirit is evident, the fearless pursuit of a goal. The arrow points true, finding its destination and locking on. Even in the darkness of night, with nothing but inner fury and the dim moonlight for guidance, this charioteer flies forth.

On my walk into the office this morning a shining penny stood out in my path. I always see these as little messages from Elegua. I pick them up, run some numerology on the year, and see what that sum means to me in that moment (it's amazing how often there is relevance). I paused and picked up the coin. I calculated the year, and found the sum to be 7. At first I frowned, slightly puzzled. And then it clicked: 7 is the number of the Chariot. And like a vast circle turning round and round and round on itself, the pieces all came together into a whole.

I will probably have sleepless nights again; this realization hardly cures me from concern. But what it has given me is a powerful tool of reflection. I don't float unmoored through time; I, as a human being on this earth, have context and history. When I forget that (which is easy to do at 3am); when I lose - even momentarily - perspective regarding my ability to breathe life into my goals for the future, I can call to mind the Chariot, which reminds me that I will, because I have.

When Spirit Moves in Children

On this sunny Sunday morning I want to very briefly illustrate in pictures the beauty of spirit moving in children. There is nothing more touching than seeing how kids experience spirituality and religion, from their own perspective. Yesterday two things happened that really moved me. In the morning, I was sitting in the living room when my young son, Gabriel, came and said that he wanted to give his silver toy car to his Elegua. I told him that I thought it was a lovely idea, and I helped him balance it on his shelf.

Later in the evening my 8 year old daughter was working on crafts at the kitchen table. We've been working on rearranging her room, and part of that process has prompted her to organize her copious art supplies. When I walked into her room after her craft session, I realized that she had created her own little altar to her guardian orisha by placing a circle of shells around an image of Yemaya that she had cut out of a larger piece of paper.

These are seemingly "little" actions that in reality are hugely significant. They are the pure impulse of children to connect in a physical way with spirituality, an early, innocent, beautiful demonstration of spiritual practice. I have nothing else to say but: aché!

Elegua and Emotional Mindfulness

Last night I wanted to do something slightly out of the ordinary for my typical practice: pull a focus card for the week ahead. I wasn't in the mood for Tarot or Lenormand; I realized that it was Oracle time! I grabbed my Halloween Oracle, which I haven't used since early November, and settled down on the couch to shuffle.

I pulled Vampire: Emotional Intelligence.

Halloween Oracle - S. DeMarco

After some thought I realized that it's quite apt given what I've already experienced regarding my previous week or two! Some questions I pose to myself:

How well am I regulating my emotions and emotional responses?
In what ways can I create boundaries so that other people and situations don't drain me?
How can I foster a balanced give-and-take in my interactions with other people?

I've noticed that I've been more easily affected by my environment over the last few days, with stronger emotional reactions than tend to be normal for me (mostly teary, but occasionally irritable). In large part that's due to being sleepier than usual due to a busy, active past few weeks. Sleepier-than-usual = nerves more easily frayed. In these instances it becomes particularly important to take a step back and allow for a moment of reflection in order to gain perspective. Sometimes the little things that set us off really aren't that big a deal in the grand scheme of things, and certainly aren't worth expending our valuable energy on being upset about.

One place I am sure I'll need to be mindful about my emotional responses is during one of the classes I'm teaching this month; I have a difficult student who's been trying my patience. I'm pretty laid back and have a great sense of humor, so it takes almost a miracle for me to lose my cool. This month many miracles have come to pass, I'll just put it that way. This will be my last week with this particular crew of college kids, and I want to enjoy it as much as possible, so I will focus on the joy I can find in each moment, and keep my emotional well-being in focus.

Just as I sat down to write this post I took a moment to finish reading an article by Jia Tolentino of an interview conducted with a fellow Lukumí practitioner, Caridad, that was quite well done. And in a moment of pristinely perfect synchronicity (even beyond what is evident from this post) this is what I read:

I appreciate Lucumi for all it has taught me about honoring life for all its contradictions and multiplicities. The idea of “both/and” transcending “either/or” is really present. It’s been very helpful for me, in anything from problems at work to breakups. Also, the idea of some orishas teaching backwards—that some lessons come unexpectedly and from a context that feels really tough. I’m a teacher, and I used to get these kids that were just wilin’ out, just so very crazy—and I learned to identify it as, “That's Eleggua's trickster energy.”

And that would bring a change in me—I’d go from being reactionary to being able to genuinely say “Thank you for showing up” to both Eleggua and the young folks themselves. This is where growing up within Buddhism really shaped my practice of Lucumi. I think it’s helped me be present and accepting with life as it is, at the same time that I try to be transformative when I need change.

Elegua
Image by Andrea Corniel

Hierophant: Understanding the Divine Child

Last night I was sitting on my couch after the little ones had gone to bed. For some days I'd been feeling pulled to have a "conversation" of sorts with Elegua, but with my hectic schedule I had been putting it off. So finally, with his red candle burning behind the door nearby, I settled into the evening and drew a few cards from my Chrysalis Tarot. I simply held in my mind and heart the intention to hear from him, to receive any messages he might want me to have. The center card of the draw was the Divine Child, which is in the Hierophant position of the Chrysalis deck. I smiled at the beautiful confirmation, for Elegua is a divine child, a gatekeeper and key-holder. I sat for some time with the card, with Elegua in my heart, and I pondered the artistic rendering, letting its message unfold slowly.

V-Divine Child, H. Sierra
Chrysalis Tarot

I think of the Hierophant as a bridge between the mundane and divine, whether that occurs through a teacher, a religion, formal study, etcetera. What I love is that this card (in the Chrysalis) shows the divinity in innocence. This has occurred via stories of divine children like Mithra or Jesus who helped connect their communities to God/the Source (whatever one happens to call it). It manifests in the powerful, child-like divinity of Elegua who guards all roads. And that fits with the deck booklet's mention of the shell showing many paths to the same destination.

The shell also reminds me of how we often refer to our bodies as shells of our souls, and in that sense we all carry the Divine within us. The Hierophant is about looking to others for divine connection, while the Divine Child shows that we are already connected, and simply have to tap into it. But often when we're on a path of self discovery, we seek out others who are on the same path who we can learn from and with, and then integrate that into our journey. In this way there is a connection between the inner and outer journeys.

Finally, this card reminds me of how children can be such amazing teachers of compassion, truth and love, divine qualities all.

Family Lines: Divination and Spirit

My mother is a Tarot reader. She is very intuitive and clairvoyant, and while she doesn't read professionally, she's always read for family and friends. Listening to her give readings with the Mythic Tarot when I was a kid is a lovely memory for me (I blogged a bit about that here). I had a good laugh the other day upon reading one of her Facebook status updates that went something like this: "I was really worried about my lost cell phone so while I was at the salon getting my hair done I did a Tarot reading. The cards told me to stop worrying about it because it would turn up. So I did, and it did!" The image of her sitting in a hair dresser's booth doing a reading about her lost phone was priceless. (And I'm really curious as to what her hair dresser thought!!).

But as I was thinking (and laughing) about this incident, the value and beauty of having this connection with my mother was not lost on me. My mother's family is predominantly from Calabria, Italy, and she grew up in southern Italy, splitting her time between Naples and Palermo. I remember that she used to describe southern Italian Catholicism as "pagan Catholicism," which always had an excitingly subversive feel to it.  She rejected the sense of male dominance in the Catholic church, but always held a deep affinity for Mary, and she has an entire wall of her kitchen dedicated to images of the Virgin and Child. Really, this "pagan Catholicism" was just syncretism, where an older religion or spirituality has been woven into the dominant belief and practice of the region. Common people never stopped believing in things like the evil eye, or seeking remedies for it. During one of my mother's visits home she brought me back a cornicello - a small red horn used to ward off the malocchio, which is a common talisman.

Cornicello

It was also my mother who introduced me to Tarot and oracles as a kid. It wasn't a formal introduction, it was just "there." She would read for me on occasion, or for friends, or sometimes other family members. Her cards always felt like a great mystery to me, and in my younger days I stuck to learning her animal oracle deck, which I adored. Tarot study, for me, would come later.

One of my most powerful memories with my mother (in terms of spirituality) was the night she took me to a ceremony when I was maybe 13 or 14. It was held at a social justice and environmentalism center outside of the city where we lived, deep in the heart of a forest. I honestly can't say I know what the ceremony was about or what the purpose was. What I do remember was being amazed at the powerful energy that united all of the people in the circle. At one point we were all chanting, and we started out very loudly, and at some point we all naturally started chanting more and more softly, until at the exact same moment we all stopped. It was about at that moment that I snapped "awake" and realized that I had been in some sort of altered consciousness with everyone else. I was in awe at how everyone seemed to be so connected, and it was all non-verbal. Later we all sat and ate together in potluck style, and I remember telling someone about a strange and striking daytime vision I'd had, and he was the first person not to look at me like I was a little crazy.*

I grew up with the powerful, embracing spiritual openness of my mother (who also was involved in aspects of feminism and the Goddess movement), and also very entwined with indigenous American culture and spiritual practice (and the rusty, dusty, bittersweet reality of reservation life) which all impacted my development. I met my husband when I was 24 years old, and one of our instant connections was some sort of spiritual resonance. I remember the first native dance I brought him to, and how moved he was by the drumming. He said it felt that although he was sitting still, something inside of him was dancing. I guess that sealed it!

My husband was raised in Cuba and Santería was the spiritual practice he knew. His grandmother was a seer of sorts, a card reader who spoke frequently with "her spirits." When Jorge and I moved in together our respective alters sat side by side, a mix of Elegua's stone and shell face, metal tools of the Warriors, offerings, stones, abalone, sage and sweetgrass.

Dancer of Yemaya

Through my husband I came to know aspects of the orishas, and have introduced them to our own children. Today Santería is a home for me, and I have great love and respect for the orishas, who feel like my family, and the practices associated with this religion and spirituality. Ten years after we first moved in together Lukumí forms a central part of our household, and our Warriors sit side by side behind our front door, while my stones and sweetgrass decorate my boveda, in another part of the house. My husband is leaving in a few days for one of his periodic visits to see his mother, and he's made a special mission for himself - to find and bring back his grandmother's cards for me. I was touched and honored.

Two or three different branches, or lineages, of religion, spirituality and practice have converged in my household, and as the years pass, the union, and the nourishment it offers, becomes so much deeper. I'm happy to have this legacy to pass on to our children.


*The vision occurred when I was walking home from middle school with two friends. We came to a point in the walk where one friend would start heading off in another direction, so they stopped to chat for a minute. During their talk, I sat down on the grass by the curb to wait. I felt something strange in my pant leg, so I reached up and pulled out a hand full of earth worms, all cut up and writhing around. I was horrified and threw the handful down in the dead grass and jumped up and shouted to my friends what had happened. I thought they'd be horrified too, but the big shock came when they looked at me like I was insane - I wasn't expecting that. I looked down and there were no worms anywhere to be found. Then I realized it hadn't happened at all, at least in real life. I walked home in a daze, and wondered for a long time what the hell that was all about! Now I understand that earthworms are about the power of regeneration and growth and healing, which was an apt message for me at that time because my parents were going through a divorce. There may be more to it, but at any rate, it would have been wonderful to have understood that at the time.