2017: Challenges and Hidden Treasures

The instructions given by Mr. Lionharts were rather simple: intentionally select three cards to represent your central challenges of 2017. Then, let the cards suggest advice for each one.

The first part was, unfortunately, a quick task for me; this past year has been one of the hardest in the last decade or so. All three of these cards have come up for me on so many occasions throughout the year that I’ve entirely lost count.

Ancient Italian Tarot - Lo Scarabeo

Temperance was my “card of the year,” drawn last December as the theme for 2017. Finding balance, healing, losing equilibrium, tearing open wounds, throwing a stick in the alchemical spokes, regaining balance, learning how to live with disharmony, learning that disharmony is a powerful tool, learning how to seek balance once again. The 8 of Swords has had me identifying and attempting to destroy extremely outdated paradigms that were restricting my growth. The Tower - ah the Tower - has made a deep and potent friend out of fire and destruction. Watch it all burn, and see what is left when the ashes are carried away by the wind. Catharsis. It’s not over yet, but I do think that I’ve crested the summit and am heading down the other side of the mountain.

On to part two: advice for each challenge.

Pagan Otherworlds Tarot - Uusi.us

The Queen of Fire speaks to Temperance. She has been a regular feature of my 2017, so it shouldn’t be a surprise to see her here. She matches the heat of Temperance’s alchemy, hot and cold, a conflagration, a waning intensity. When I am her, reversed, it’s not much use talking to me; I am a ball of fire ready to reduce my interlocutor to ashes. But it is part of the birthing of her dynamic and deeply powerful essence within me. When I am her, upright, I enjoy engaging new people like never before - the hermit out of the cave - I hunger for connection, I laugh, I consume the beauty around me like a starving animal. This isn’t so much advice as a recognition that provides helpful perspective. I know this about myself, now. Some days balance is easier to achieve than others. I am learning to integrate this Queen into my soul, and that’s a process.

The Knight of Pentacles speaks to the 8 of Swords. Releasing those old and restrictive paradigms requires steady progress, one foot ahead of the other. I can measure it in small but tangible differences in my everyday life. It feels like I’ve been walking forever and the landscape has changed little. But one day I look up and can see the plains stretching out below me; little changes make all the difference in how I perceive the world around me, and remind me that I am indeed moving.

The 6 of Cups speaks to the Tower. I call this my “re-membering” card; through it I pull back the parts of myself that I’ve lost along the way. The Tower built of concessions, limitations, “buts,” “oughts,” “can’ts,” hard histories, and the stories I tell myself.... it falls. And in its destruction I find myself again.

Here's to closing out a thoroughly transformative year and inviting in 2018!

Queen of Wands

As I leap forward into my return to the office, I look for ways to stabilize the transition. It's been a very busy year - all in great ways, but I've had to learn new techniques for balancing my time and energy. As much as I've attempted to avoid burnout, I've come close on at least a couple of occasions. I really needed this vacation to shift my focus, and to replenish my energy.

This morning I was straddling the line between feeling ready, and feeling reluctant. I decided to pull a card from this new, amazing deck, the Pagan Otherworlds Tarot (which I can't recommend enough, and will do a review of very soon).

The Queen of Wands appeared for me, and as I gazed down at her warmth I was filled with a calm confidence and an awareness that the day was going to be good. Many months ago when I was indeed on the edge of burning out, I pulled this Queen (from another deck, of course) reversed, and took her message to heart that I needed to find a better way of managing my energy output and associated stress levels.

When I did my New Moon reading this past Friday, the "waning" card was the 4 of Swords, and the "waxing" card was the 10 of Wands. I saw in that duo the ending of my down time, and the return to the responsibilities of the workplace. I am not a fatalist, so rather than sigh in surrender at the oncoming "burden," I sought a focal point, a strategy, to help maintain my peace within the busy-ness of my professional environment. The 4 of Swords offers some of that; I don't need to assume that rest is reserved for vacation - I can (and should) find ways to make space for quiet, reflective moments every day, and not feel guilty for claiming them, but recognize that they are a critical part of self-care.

This Queen reminds me that achieving balance does not require the separation of my Self into partitions at all. She reminds me that vibrancy is not the same as extroversion - it comes from within. Its primary focus is on a strong inner power that naturally emanates outward, and is not drained by the ebb and flow of the environment around her. She engages others, and yet is always mindful of maintaining her own equilibrium.

Looking at this Queen seemed to spark a sort of alchemical shift within me. I moved from "ugh..." to "I got this" in a matter of moments. So cheers to the Queen of Wands, and here's to remembering all of the things I so deeply enjoy about the work that I do!

Tarot Alchemy - Triplicity of Card Meanings

I’ve been thinking lately about the dual (and triple, maybe even quadruple!) nature of some card meanings in readings. I'm not talking about the fact that all cards have multiple facets of meaning (which of course is true). I mean that one card may relate to more than one aspect of a reading. I will now attempt to make sense!

For instance, the other day I did a reading and the Queen of Wands reversed appeared as one of three cards.  The reading was about a familial (non-romantic) relationship between two people, and I felt that the Queen of Wands related to several elements: on one hand I felt it represented the first of the two people as being “unrealized” and even somewhat manipulative (though I felt that part was unintentional).  But on the other hand it struck me as also highlighting the feeling of powerlessness experienced by the second person in the relationship.  That second person also appeared as another card in the reading, so there were a lot of layers going on. So rather than the Queen representing one particular person or situation, it represented several facets of both people involved in the reading.

Deviant Moon Tarot - Queen of Wands
Patrick Valenza/U.S. Games 2008

I feel this can happen in readings where no spread is being used, because without positions, there is more flexibility and alchemy possible with card meanings and relationships between various cards.

This all brings to mind my thoughts on receiving “signs” from the Universe. I do believe that little, meaningful, symbolic things occur in our lives that can serve as catalysts for self-improvement, introspection, and even just the simple feeling that there is something out there that is powerful and beautiful, and mysterious. Sometimes these signs can take the form of synchronistic moments, or meetings, or interactions where we think, “If I’d been here just two seconds before, I never would have seen that!” Those “wow” moments that make you think, that put you in awe of the Universe we’re all a part of.  So a long time ago I remember thinking “Yeah, but if I see something that has meaning for me, there is surely someone else who also saw it, was affected by it, but perhaps in a different way.  So does it become meaningless, then?”  And I determined that in fact it doesn’t become meaningless at all, it simply means that one event can have multiple meanings and different implications, all equally important, for many different witnesses.  I see this as the Universe multitasking.  It's far too busy to provide unique signs and symbols for different people all of the time.  Instead of detracting from the power inherent in "signs," I feel it enhances it.

So I feel it works with cards in a similar way. The Queen of Wands represented different aspects of both people in the aforementioned spread.  In fact there were three cards total in the reading, and all of the cards had some kind of overlapped meaning for both people, respectively. Think of a Venn diagram, which I hope will illustrate my thoughts more clearly than my words probably are:

I sincerely hope that made the right kind of sense!  In the end there is just so much meaning, so many circles integrating, overlapping, weaving in and out, that it becomes almost dizzying.  But then, that’s the beauty of Tarot. ☺

The Hare, Queen of Bows

I chose this card as a daily draw to meditate on today, from the Wildwood Tarot.

In the Wildwood deck the Court cards are represented by animals instead of human figures, and I find it an interesting added dimension to traditional understandings of the various cards. The Hare, today, is no exception.  A Hare stands partially upright in a rolling field by night.  One paw lies on a stone image of the Green Man/Green Woman, and high above a round and luminous moon shines.  In the hazy light  a dark shape in the distance looks rather mysterious: it could be a stand of pines, or a tree-covered ridge.  

None of the symbols are anything I would traditionally associate with the Queen of Wands (Bows in this case).  Wands represent fire, energy and movement, and tend to be connected to the sun rather than the moon. The moon represents intuition, and the "dark side of creativity" - the inner mystery as opposed to energetic, outer creative force of the Wands suit.  Normally we see the moon associated with the Queen of Cups, a water card.  The Hare itself represents intuition and rebirth, so it connects well to the moon, however rebirth and hares also connect to the Judgment card, which is represented by the element of fire, and the sun, like this Queen, so there is a unifying element here.  In fact, I like the touch of intuition given to all the Queens in the Wildwood deck (water is included in each depiction except this card, which includes the moon) because it is a quality naturally associated with femininity in general, not just a particular sort of femininity (though the Queen of Cups might have a special depth of intuition, I suppose).

Wildwood Tarot
Mark Ryan, John Matthews, Will Worthington
Sterling Ethos

                                  

 I usually think of the Queen of Wands as "the woman who can do it all."  She is successful, vibrant, and knows how to strike a balance between career and home.  In this way the Hare is appropriate, as it also represents the idea of balance.  The symbol of the Green Man and Woman are also fitting in this way.  In Wildwood, the Green Man is the Emperor, who provides structure, guidance, authority and  protection. The Green Woman is the Empress, who nurtures love, family, and creativity.  I believe the Queen of Wands/Bows embodies both sets of characteristics.  

So as for myself?  I tend to feel that my strongest Queens are Cups and the Pentacles (making for a rather muddy combo!). I feel fairly strong in Wands, though my energy tends to be more passive and introverted.  Swords is the one I'm trying to develop.  When I look at this Queen of Wands/Bows card I don't automatically connect strongly to the book meaning, but I do connect very deeply to the images on this particular version, and feel it's a very good match for how I've been feeling lately: in a process of rebirth, connected and steadily deepening my connection to my intuition, nurturing, creative, balanced.  I really enjoy the new elements that the Wildwood Queen of Bows has to offer.

A Three-Card Spread and Elemental Dignities (and reversals)

I've been hesitant to use reversals.  I'm not against using them, and may consider incorporating them in the future.  It's not because I'm afraid of the negative implications they sometimes bring, or because I feel it's unnecessary as Tarot cards already hold tons of meaning.  I've seen spreads that have been done with reversals where I find the reversals tend to give a subtle layer of additional meaning to the reading that would not have been as clear otherwise.  So we'll see about that.  What I find most mind-shattering is that with 78 upright cards there are already so many potential meanings and ways of interpreting them, that to add another slew of potential meanings to each one just makes me exhausted.  I mean, have you done the math?  78 cards does not equal 78 meanings.... if we decide to randomly assign 5 potential meanings to each card, that comes to a total of 390 potential meanings we have floating around in our minds.  That does not factor in the positions the various cards end up in, or the interactions and additional potential meanings we might see and intuit from a spread.  If we double that, we come to 780.  It's perfectly possible to learn reversals and successfully apply them.  But while I already understand the basic premise of reversals and their application, I'm not sure it's entirely necessary or worthwhile yet to study each card.

At any rate, I've been reading about elemental dignities and the extra clarity they can provide readings by helping to determine which cards carry more or less weight in a spread.  The first websites I looked at were really confusing, mainly because while the description of elemental dignities was fairly clear, there were no examples of real-life spreads with interpretations using the elemental dignities.  So learning how to apply them seemed daunting - yet I kept reading about how powerful they can be!  So I was motivated to figure this whole situation out.....

Image from Creative Commons

Meanwhile I read a blog entry on Sun Goddess Tarot (a blog I've come to love), where Tarot "newbies" were encouraged to get more experience reading strangers by signing up to do free readings through various sites.  When I went to one of the sites, it said that all potential free-readers must EITHER use reversals OR elemental dignities.  I thought: "Okay! It's settled! I will learn these dignities, or else!"  (Later that night, in frustration, I threw my hands up in the air and resigned myself to learning all of the reversed meanings I could; it's true - elemental dignities are not for the faint of heart).

But I was further motivated by the apparent recognition that while yes, reversals can provide extra layers of insight, so can elemental dignities, and it's not absolutely necessary to use both. (Yet. But this is me, and I will probably learn all the reversals at some point, anyway, just for the additional challenge and knowledge).  So, that felt validating, and I was happy (and still am) to learn a challenging but effective system that does not require doubling up on all of the cards.

Okay.  So this morning I had a meeting with a student and his advisor about a plagiarizing issue (this was mentioned in a previous post).  I had been working with this student for just a couple of weeks, and so far most of his out-of-class work had been poor, despite his general good naturedness.  I was nervous about how the meeting would go because while I was unhappy with the quality of the student's work, coupled with the plagiarism, I was nervous about the potential implications, and how student would react.  I decided to do a 3-card spread, but didn't assign meanings to any of the positions.

I pulled:                    The Queen of Wands   -    3 of Cups   -     Ace of Wands

My initial interpretation:

My first sense was that the Queen of Wands was the student's advisor.  I had not met her before, so I was encouraged by this card - it suggested a very capable woman with self-confidence, a caring and friendly demeanor.  I felt this meant that she would lead the meeting well, and would come up with a creative way to deal with this unpleasant situation.

The 3 of Cups brings to mind teamwork, success, celebration, and I definitely did not think this meeting would be most of those things.  But the element of teamwork stuck with me, as I was preparing for a meeting with several other people.

The Ace of Wands at first made me feel that the situation would be resolved in a positive way, and the student would be allowed some kind of new beginning.  I wasn't really sure what that might look like.

So then I applied the elemental dignities.  Fire and Water don't mix.  And two fire cards flanking one water card meant that the Wands really dominated this spread - they were most important - while the 3 of Cups' meaning was diminished.  This made sense - to me, then, the 3 of Cups signified the meeting itself, and the coming together of several people to solve an issue.  The emphasis of this issue lied in the Queen of Wands (the student advisor) and the the Ace of Wands (what I came to think of as the outcome).

The result:

I had the meeting today, and was pleased with the results.  When I walked into the advisor's office and met her I immediately said to myself "Yes. This is definitely the Queen of Wands."  She was everything you'd imagine the Queen of Wands to be, and it was a pleasure to meet her.  She handled the meeting with expert grace, and was firm yet kind.

I had been led to believe there would be up to 5 people in the meeting, but in the end there were just three of us - the Three of Cups. And the meeting, while successful, was not celebratory, so I felt that the card with the adjusted meaning was very accurate.

Finally, the card that still held some mystery for me: the Ace of Wands.  I originally thought it meant a creative outcome, a new opportunity for the student, in some way.  Well, that was accurate, though not in the way I might have thought.  The student lost all points for the class, received a zero for his project, and after calculations were complete, it was evident he would be failing my class, and thus would have to retake it next semester.  There's a new beginning, alright.  He would be held accountable for his work, and would need to challenge himself to try harder, and take his work more seriously.  I wondered if in part this conclusion remained cloudy for me because I was personally invested in the idea that he would not have to repeat my course, even though rationally I knew it was a real possibility.

The spread was entirely right on, and the application of the elemental dignities was helpful in determining extra meaning for the cards involved.  It is a simple example, but one that gives me a clearer understanding of how the elemental dignities can impact the meaning of a spread, even in subtle ways.  When I thought of the spread, I thought that a reversed 3 of Cups might well have signified similar things in this spread - a subdued version of the upright.  While this might not work the same way for every card in the deck, it did provide food for thought, in terms of how the meanings or impact of reversals and elemental dignities can intersect, and I'm looking forward to practicing more with this application.