Tarot Blog Hop: Winter Finding

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Welcome to the Autumn Equinox Tarot Blog Hop, hosted by Jay Cassels and Arwen Lynch Poe. The topic this season is "Foodie's Guide to the Tarot" (though for all intents and purposes posts may feature any oracle or divination tool!). 

The Equinox is celebrated around the world, and goes by an array of names according to tradition, culture, or region. Among the practitioners of the Northern Tradition, some refer to this equinox as Winter Finding, a harvest time where special attention is paid to the Vanir gods and goddesses of abundance and fertility, such as Freyja, Freyr, Njörd, and Nerthus. 

Das Germanische Götterorakel - Voenix

Njörd is a god associated with wealth. He is also principally tied to the sea, and humankind's relationship with it: the winds, waves, the catch. Thus Njörd is connected to mariners, fishermen - any and all those whose living depends in some way upon the ocean.

The card featured here is from the Das Germanische Götterorakel (The Germanic Gods Oracle) by Voenix and Thomas Vömel. It is an 81-card oracle deck which represents the major deities, heroes, giants/jötunn, and overarching concepts in the Norse Eddas and Sagas. Here we see Njörd sitting on a coastline draped in seaweed, surrounded by gulls. An open chest of gold lies to his side, and a longship can be seen in the background. A keyword, "Reichtum," is listed on the card, which means "wealth."

I've often imagined some of my ancient North Frisian and Danish forebears - sea people, island folk - holding a special regard for this Norse deity. My great-grandfather left the island of Amrum as a young boy, and came to New York City with his family. Here they are, in the traditional dress of Amrum and Sylt (my great-grandfather is the boy at the lower left). 

In the United States he met and married my great-grandmother, Emilie Hansen, from Ribe, Denmark. Ribe is the oldest town in Denmark, and one of the oldest towns in all of Scandinavia. It is located in southwest Jutland and borders the North Sea, not more than 100 kilometers from Amrum. 

Gerret and Emilie's son, also named Gerret, was my grandfather, and of his three children, one of them - my aunt Lillian - dedicated her life to the U.S. Coast Guard, and for many years (until it sunk in harbor not too long ago) owned a boat she named "Norddorf," after Norddorf, Amrum.  I have fond memories of family celebrations aboard that vessel. The "sea gene" continued to breathe life into the following generations. 

My Grandfather, Gerret

One of my earliest memories of my grandfather (who died of a heart attack while mowing the grass when I was barely two years old) is of sitting next to him at a cafe counter and ordering New England clam chowder. I was so young when he died that I can't be absolutely certain that this occurred, but I've had the memory since I can recall, and the recollection of my grandfather's clothing - a white t-shirt, blue jeans, a red baseball cap - has always been vivid. 

Clam chowder is a fitting maritime meal, it's perfect for the cooling months of coming autumn, and it connects well with honoring Njörd at the Winter Finding, so I'll offer it here. 

I am decidedly not the recipe sort so I'll do what I can to give accurate quantities...

New England Clam Chowder

• 4 large potatoes
• 1 onion or leek
• A 15 oz. can of corn (you can use fresh corn, or frozen, as well)
• Water (enough for boiling the potatoes)
• 1-2 cups of milk (whole milk is great, but you can also use a smaller amount of heavy cream)
• 1 small can of clams (go for fresh if you like!)
• A slice or two of bacon (optional, but worth it)
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Butter and/or olive oil

Peel and chop the potatoes and place them in a large stove pot. Pour in just enough water to cover the potatoes completely, add a bit of salt, and let them boil. In the meantime, sautee the chopped onion or leek in butter or olive oil. If you like bacon, you can throw some in to add to the depth of flavor, just chop or crumble after it is cooked. Add the onion and oil/butter (and bacon, if you like) to the potato water. (Do not drain the potatoes - you'll use that water as the base for the broth.) Add the corn when the potatoes are close to done, and let simmer. Then add the clams and their juices. Finally, when the potatoes are soft, turn the heat down so that the liquid is no longer simmering (very low setting), and then add the milk or cream. Cream is finicky about being boiled, so keep that in mind. Milk is a bit sturdier. Mix it in and let it heat through. Adjust seasonings with salt and pepper as desired. Eat it up!

Now, as I said before, this is my attempt at quantifying a recipe that I usually just "eyeball." If you choose to go for it, don't be afraid to add more or less of any of these ingredients! And if you need precision, there are a lot of nice-looking recipes online that will do the trick (here is one). 

Njörd altar space

Enjoy the Equinox! Happy Mabon, and a Blessed Winter Finding to you all! 

Please use the links at the top or bottom of this post to navigate to the other wonderful blogs in this circle.

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Spring Fling Tarot Blog Hop: Saving the Hierophant

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Welcome to the Blog Hop celebrating the Vernal Equinox! See the links above, or at the bottom of this post, to continue navigating through the circle of blogs, and should you lose your place, you can always access the Master list.

(Please note! The URL for this blog has changed to www.firstearthtarotandroot.com)

Our hop wrangler this time around is Ania Marczyk, and she has set a cool task for all of us hoppers: 

"The standard Tarot deck is over 500 years old and the cards are very much a product of that time, particularly the Major Arcana and Courts. So I am asking you to consider which cards you think need to be updated, removed or added to reflect our modern society?

Are there any glaring omissions? What is redundant? Which card has you scratching your head wondering where it fits in today? Or do you think that archetypes are so universal that there is still a relevant place for all, be they Hermits, Pages, Knights or Emperors?"

My basic answer to this is: no, I don't think the deck needs to be changed, updated, or altered in any way. But if I ended on this note, it'd be a very boring post! So I'm going to talk about a card that I know that many people struggle with: the Hierophant. I understand that some people are turned off by this archetype due to negative experiences with organized religion, or because they resent the idea that a spiritual authority figure might hold the only key to the divine. Setting aside the role of the Hierophant as representative of higher education, therapy, and the like, I want to focus on the role that this archetype plays specifically in terms of religion and the spiritual journey, using my own life as an example.

Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot
U.S. Games

I always felt a bit unmoored in terms of spiritual practice, as a kid and young adult. I didn’t have a tradition or framework in which to map my mystical experiences, or spiritual elders (aside from my mother and step-father) to whom I could go for deeper understanding of the mysteries of life. I knew that God existed, without a doubt, and was raised with various aspects of religion and spirituality such as Christianity, indigenous mythology and practice, and Buddhist ideology. I always had some level of sensitivity to "other worlds." I appreciated all religious paths, recognizing all of them as having beauty and truths to offer, while simultaneously understanding that none of them were the “one, true way.” How could they be? We arrive at the sacred in a multitude of ways, we pull it from inside our bodies, surround ourselves with it like an embrace from the sun, consume it with every breath we take. Yes, the divine is within us. However I was deeply missing a sense of anchoring in a specific tradition, a form of practice, and a community.

I came to Lukumí in a roundabout way. When my husband, Jorge, and I first moved in together a decade ago our altars sat side-by-side: my buckskin covered with sage picked from Pine Ridge, stones that carried special significance for me, a small vessel of earth, feathers; his Elegua and Ogun and Ochosi with honey and candy and jacks and pennies scattered about. I never thought much about it (except for once when the cable guy came to fix a cord and I realized that he had a prime view of our pair of altars, and must wonder what he’d gotten himself into by coming into our home!). It was a few years later when we’d moved on to a new house, that I decided to teach our older daughter about the Orishas (divine, saint-like beings). I created a binder for her, and each page contained therein covered a separate Orisha, and all the meanings and associations attributed to him/her. It’s funny – I distinctly remember quizzing her on them - “And Ochosi? What are his colors? Tell me about him.” - and yet I didn’t have any particular impulse at that time to practice Santería; I simply wanted my kids to understand elements of the tradition. To this day I have no idea where that binder ended up….

Wildwood Tarot
Will Worthington

I dove back into card reading more intensively in about 2006 and the years passed. Elegua and Yemaya and Ochun and Obatala, Ochosi and Ogun, had come to feel like family members to me; I cared about them. When my husband went through a difficult time in his life, it was I who lit the candles and put out alpiste for Elegua, who sat at the oceanside and quietly beseeched Yemaya to help heal him. When he took a distant trip, I was so anxious that I prayed with Ogun to protect the car. I didn’t really know what I was doing at the time; I only knew they were part of me, of our household, and that we were part of them, and I did what I could.

It was probably a year later that I had my first consulta with a babalawo in Cuba, and five months after that our close friends from Cuba came to Miami, and we reconnected. The young boy my husband had last seen in Cuba years earlier was now a young man and babalawo, and he would become my padrino in Ifá.  On the night of Ochun’s feast day, September 8th, I dreamed that Elegua, my best friend, came to me and told me that he would help organize my initiation into the religion. It was immensely touching. About three months later I received my Warriors, and two months after that I received ikofá along with my daughters, and my son (who received awofakan).

New Orleans Voodoo Tarot
S. Glassman

The religion of Lukumí has given me a deeply rich and satisfying focus, tradition, and practice for my spirituality. My relationship with the saints is humbling, empowering, strengthening, grounding, and above all, loving. I have a community of practice in Florida and Cuba, family who, along with me, experience the tapestry of life through which Santería/Lukumí is woven. My younger daughter comes to me and asks if she can take a dollar from her birthday stash and give it to her Elegua; I consent, moved by her desire. When she peeks over my shoulder to see what I’m doing online, I tease her: “Mmhmm…. Just like your sign from your itá said, too curious for your own good!” She laughs and walks away.

In Tarot, the card that always pops up in regards to my relationship to my faith community, or to initiation, is the Hierophant. The Hierophant represents tradition, knowledge, group experience, learning, and guidance. All of those are elements of my path in Lukumí. The Hierophant does not say “my way is the only way,” or “I am your only connection to the divine.” The Hierophant is simply a bridge – one of many – to help us understand our lives and explore our faith within the context of a deeply rooted traditional and mystical practice.

Vision Quest Tarot
Gayan Silvie Winter, Jo Dose

In my extended family the Hierophant manifests in many ways: my sister’s love of her Islamic faith, my cousin’s Hindu customs that she has passed on to her children, my brother’s deep Catholicism. All of us coexist harmoniously together. There are touches of Buddhism, indigenous American practices, ancient pre-Christian European influences. All of these are woven into our fabric of life, our spiritual journey, our communities of practice, and the Hierophant’s energy permeates it all.

Call it what you like - The Hierophant, the Shaman, the Master of the Head, the Ancestor, or the High Priest. In all of its forms, it has a sacred and universal place within the Tarot.

Happy Equinox!

(Please note! The URL for this blog has changed to www.firstearthtarotandroot.com)

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Ostara Blog Hop - Rebirth

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This Ostara we're celebrating the cycle of life, and in particular that part of the cycle that speaks of rebirth. Our wrangler this time around is the lovely Joanne Sprott from Cosmic Whispers Tarot. Please see the links at the top or bottom of this post to access the other posts in this circle!

This blog hop I want to share some aspects of rebirth that have been living most vibrantly in my mind recently. The first comes from my work, of late, with the New Orleans Voodoo Tarot (and if you want to see my review of the deck, click here) which has been a deeply rewarding and meaningful experience. "Rebirth" (also called Judgment) - both the card and the concept - is a beautiful and integral part of who we are as human beings, and as spiritual beings stumbling and dancing through life. It's often the first card I look at in a new deck. The New Orleans Voodoo Tarot is the first deck I've worked with where absorbing the eloquence of the accompanying book made me feel like I was receiving sacred knowledge and wisdom that nourished me and opened my eyes a little wider at the same time (not unlike the impact of reading an excellent poem, but hold that thought for just a moment!). I want to share the first paragraph in this book, in the entry regarding card XX - Ancestors:

"The voices of thousands of souls cry out within us. The hands of the ancestors weave our destiny with threads whose beginnings are dipped into the waters of creation. To hear the cry of these souls, to feel the twistings of this thread, is to know our Name in its most pregnant fullness. We are heir to a largeness that knows no end and is touched by no beginning (1992, Martinié; pg. 82)."

New Orleans Voodoo Tarot
Martinié/Glassman

The great circle constantly expands, folds back onto itself, and reaches out again into the universe. I love the essence of this particular version of XX - that we are fundamentally connected to those who came before us, (their realities and experiences as much as our own), that everything we do falls in the context of a great Cycle that our actions indeed impact. We move forward insofar as we recognize and respect where we've come from. There are many layers to that concept!

Rebirth, choices and actions. Sometimes transformation happens to us unbidden, and sometimes we invite it in. In both circumstances a decision is involved - we choose to put our full awareness to the newness coming into our lives…or not. We choose to back-pedal, or go with the flow. We choose how deeply we will accept the transformation into our lives, what we learn from it, how it changes us, and how we integrate that into our hearts, minds and spirits. In this light, as a second offering I want to share an excellent poem (a favorite of mine since I was a child, and perhaps a favorite of many people), The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost (1920), that also reads like sacred and wise text:

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;        5

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,        10

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.        15

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

To close, I'd like to offer a very simple exercise you can do with your cards (or runes, if you like).

Consider these questions: What are you being called to at this moment in your life? In what way are you experiencing rebirth at this time? 

Take your favorite deck, and with this thought in your mind, select a single card. What does it tell you? Do you recognize the message, or is it a surprise? How does it resonate with you? What does it underscore for you? How does it make you more aware of the transformation flowing through you?

I drew Congo 3 - Manman Brigitte. She is a loa (spirit) of feminine power, wisdom and death, married to Baron Samedi, her male counterpart. This card is about right judgement and balance. We can only be truly free to enjoy life's pleasures when we accept the inevitability of death, and the endless cycle of change that moves through the universe. This loa shares some similarities to Kali's intense power - she brings change - sweeping, deep change, so it's better to go with the flow rather than resist!

This card is inherently about change, so it fits very well with the topic of the question that I posed. I've been working through a period of significant change for the past year, or a little over a year - a slow and powerful unfolding of a new phase of being that has touched many aspects of my life in very positive ways. I often do feel like I'm in the process of being reborn, with all its discomfort, excitement and mix of shadow and light.  Manman Brigitte affirms for me this transition, and its inevitable and significant nature.

Even looking at this card as the 3 of Cups (its sort-of counterpart), there is meaning here for me. Recently I've been undergoing a process of growing new friendships and connections with people who share interests and understandings that are similar to my own. It feels like a bright and welcoming new phase, after having been quite secluded within family life for many years, so it does have a sense of metamorphosis. I like being private, but I've realized that some of my privacy has been due to not feeling able to speak openly about my experiences (especially in regards to spirituality and divination) with almost anyone except my close family members. Becoming aware of those invisible restraints was good for me, and I'm enjoying the feeling of being able to really share with and learn from others. There is something rich and sustaining in community, and it's not lost on me that this blogging community is just another meaningful and nourishing layer.

Happy Ostara, Happy Easter Season, and Happy Hopping!

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