5 of Wands: Integrating Ferocity

The day 10 task for the Shadow Work October challenge asks: What do you need to release?

I pulled: 5 of Scepters (Wands) reversed:

Tarot of Vampyres

This was interesting, as this was one of the cards I drew for the day nine task about misperceptions we have about ourselves; for me this related to a fear of conflict, that it would be the end of me, that I can't handle it. So to pull this as something in need of release is fitting, really. I need to continue working on releasing my desire/tendency to avoid conflict. 

This card shows a woman facing down a black panther. The black panther has been significant in my life over the past six months or so. In this image I see the need for the woman to release her fear of her own ferocity, to put the cross down and allow the panther to meld with her spirit. The panther is not going to hurt her; that in itself is her misconception. The panther is a part of her, calling for integration. 

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!

Spirit Pictures

I'm taking a mediumship class and last night was our second meeting. I love the instructor, Suzan - she's down to earth, kind, practical, and her energy is beautifully positive.

Each class starts out with a "psychic exercise" as a kind of warm-up. Last night we did colored ribbons. In pairs, one person was designated to read the other person. The person being read would select two different ribbons that they felt represented their past and present. Then the person doing the reading would select a third ribbon that they felt represented the future of the person being read. Then we "read the ribbons" for that person. Of course, ribbons are just props, and we were using them as a focus to tap into the other person's energies. It was cool.

I was in a pairing with a woman who was new that evening. She was a bit nervous, but she was pretty amazing. As she sat there meditating on my ribbons, I wondered what she might say, and ultimately everything she said about me was precise and, as they say, "spot on." She even picked up on my children, and my slowly growing business, which was pretty cool. Then it was my turn.

Creative Commons

                                     
As she selected her ribbons I found I just "knew" what was going on with her. These feelings are always a bit scary (should I seriously say what I feel?? What if I'm dead wrong!?) - but I'm learning to just spit it out, even if my eyes are clamped shut and my fingers are in my ears. It's surprising how relevant those impressions end up being.

I felt she had a really, really wicked upbringing that had caused some major damage, which she confirmed. She said it was something she never tells people about, and she seemed relieved that it had come across so clearly. She told me she'd been thinking about that as she selected her "past" ribbon. I could tell that she was now making a big shift, and that in fact her presence in this class was a decision she made to "just do her." She also confirmed that. I picked up on a close friend of hers, and also that she was moving into holistic practice as her life's work, not just a side interest, and that her difficult past was really going to be a benefit to her in working with others. Turns out she had just enrolled in a course to study to be a life coach, and she told me that she's always felt the same - that what happened long ago needed to happen in order to bring to where she is now (which I'm sure we can probably all say about our lives!).  Over all it was a really nice and deeply affirming experience.

Then we shifted into mediumship.

During the first class I was kind of a mess (hadn't slept, had worked all day, and almost didn't even go to the class in favor of sleeping) and while I started out okay, half way through I just went blank and couldn't get anything anymore after that. Thus I was feeling pretty unsure of myself, and honestly I was fighting a desire to run the other direction the entire time I was driving down to class! My instructor had pulled me aside and reassured me that "we all have bad days," and she knows my energy, and knows what I can do. That was really sweet, and nice, but I still felt kinda bad. So this night, though I was feeling much better physically, I decided to just let things go. I wasn't going to try to pick up on anyone, I was just going to sit there and open myself up to my partner, and see what came up, if anything. I figured that in the worst-case scenario, I'm a crappy, inconsistent medium - I could live with that!

Perhaps due to that release, I ended up having a great night, and my confidence was restored. After a minute or so I started to see a very distinct blue energy which I felt to be a male spirit, but with no real shape. I felt this spirit was wrapped around her, protecting her, and I knew it was most definitely not a deceased relative, but more angel-ish. In fact as I was relating this to her, I told her that I don't usually talk about angels much, but in this case I felt there was something about the energy that really suggested something of that nature. I also felt her dreams had been pretty busy. The teacher came over and I was asking her about this energy and she said "you're picking up on her guide!" Ah hah! That felt right, and was really interesting, as it's the first time I've ever tuned into someone's guide before. But this was very strong, very present energy. So my partner said that she often speaks with her guide, and she does feel him to be male. He often comes to her in her dreams and she never sees his face, only his form. I tried to tune into a face but all I saw was a snake-like outline (head only), which I told her. She said that she's had a few dreams lately of snakes, and in the dreams she would marvel at the fact that she wasn't scared, so perhaps there was a correlation. The instructor asked me what the color blue meant to me, and I honestly said I didn't really know. She tuned in and said she got a strong sense of heavy communication from the guide toward my partner, which makes sense because of all the dream activity and the spirit's heavy presence around her. The dominant feeling I had was one of protection.

Later we did something we jokingly called "tag teams" where we would sit in groups of four, and three of us would try to tune into the same passed relative of the fourth person. Once the spirit was positively identified, we'd go around in a circle and see if each of us could add layers of detail about the spirit. The woman asked us to tap into her grandmother, and that was pretty immediate (that the grandma spirit showed up). What was interesting was the clairvoyance. I find I have two predominate "clairs" which are clairvoyance and clairsentience. I'm always amazed at the pictures that cross my sight. So for this grandmother I suddenly saw a very clear picture of a cross, and asked the woman if her grandmother was very religious. She confirmed that she was, and that religion and church were in fact very important parts of her grandmother's life. I also picked up on where she lived (the country) and I kept seeing her in a white gown. The woman said that her grandmother wore a white gown every Sunday when she participated in the church service. I also felt that she was very much the most important figure in the family, and everyone deeply respected her, which the woman confirmed.

Spirit pictures are highly interesting. As I work on developing these skills, it's becoming easier to tell the difference between my own imagination and the images that I'm being shown, which slowly helps me to trust myself more and more (a daunting process, I will say!). I'm always deeply humbled by these experiences - I go into them rather anxious and uncertain, and am constantly amazed and even surprised to understand that the "other side" is always there waiting for us and available to us; it just takes practice and an open mind.

Spirit Conversations

The other day a Tarot friend from across the globe asked me about some experiences she’s been having connecting with her father-in-law in spirit, who she had never met in the physical.  (You can read about Joanna’s conversation with her father-in-law here).

What is interesting is that for the past couple of weeks I’ve been connecting with my own father-in-law who I’d also never met.  Jose passed very quickly of cancer when my husband was barely 21 years old, and it left a deeply painful mark on him, which in many ways he still struggles with.   I never had the opportunity to know Jose, and I have often felt sad about that, so having a context in which to interact with him (in this case, via mediumship) has been a very important and special experience for me.

My first foray into connecting with spirit was when I connected with the energies of Jorge’s (my husband) brother Manuel, who also died of cancer far too young. My thought at the time was: if I can connect with living energies, why can’t I connect to the energies of those who are no longer in physical form?  I’ve often felt Manuel’s presence in and around us.  In fact he came to Jorge in a dream to inform him of my pregnancy with our daughter Lourdes, the day before I decided to take the pregnancy test.  The two of them had a very strong tie, and his death also took a major toll on Jorge.  So I decided to tap into Manuel’s energy, and found that I could, and I was able to pass on a message to Jorge via a combination of clairsentience and the tool of Tarot.

Wildwood Tarot
John Matthews, Mark Ryan, Will Worthington
Sterling Ethos, 2011

Jorge was touched by that, and eventually asked if at some point I could try to connect with his father.  One evening after I put our youngest child to bed I sat with my cards and closed my eyes, and invited Jose to connect with me.  I felt him surprisingly quickly, and his energy was very strong.  I felt him, his face, his neck, his being, very near to my own face, and it almost tickled, and it made me laugh out loud.  I had the sense that he’d been keeping his distance, observing from afar, for quite a long time, and he was happy to have received an open invitation to be present and to interact.  I also felt that he really didn’t feel like “talking” with me via Tarot.  He just wanted to “be.” He passed to me the feelings he experienced at the time just prior to his death, when he was in the hospital.  I knew that Jorge had told me that his father glared at his grandmother during this time.  He could no longer speak, but his eyes conveyed a strong message, and Jorge’s grandmother told him later, “Your father died hating me.” Their relationship had not been simple.  So I wasn’t surprised to feel anger, but the complex combination of feelings was striking.  He felt anger, and sadness, yes.  But there were a host of other feelings that took me by surprise.  Eventually I persuaded him to allow me to use cards to provide a somewhat more tangible message for Jorge, and while reluctant, it worked out okay.  It was interesting, that reluctance, because when working with Manuel and even my own grandmother, there had never been any issue with using the cards.  But for some reason Jose didn’t want to bother, it was like it was an annoying hassle or something.  So he did pass a message to Jorge, recognizing some of the current hurdles that my husband is facing, and also expressing a regret at not having been as communicative as he wished he had been with his son. (An afterthought: according to Jorge, his grandmother had a strong connection to spirit, and also worked with cards.  Thinking back on that, I wonder if his reluctance to "speak" via the cards was a reflection of the difficult relationship he had with her.)

When I was ready to close down communication, I found that Jose was not.  This was also a surprise. He seemed so happy to have made the connection that he wasn’t quite ready to be done with it yet.  So we went together into my daughter’s room and I silently introduced him to her (she was reading and I didn’t bother her).  A short time later I was chatting with Jorge and I just burst out laughing.  I had the strangest sense of viewing Jorge from the angle of his father, and even had the feeling that Jose was looking at Jorge through my eyes.  That has happened a couple of times since, and I’ve come to think of it as borrowing someone’s binoculars; it’s entirely unobtrusive, but the sensation is unique. It was so funny, so odd, so new that I had to laugh.  Jorge looked at me strangely, wondering what was up, and suddenly said, “My dad’s still here, isn’t he!”  And I said that yes, he was.  Jorge said that he could feel his dad’s energy.  He seemed both annoyed and at the same time happy that his father was “there.”  Later I had to tell Jose “Okay listen, I’m ready to go do normal things like eat some food and watch T.V.”  I went about my business and he eventually faded.  I asked my mentor about this and she said that sometimes passed loved ones just want to be a part of the family, and hang around with us.  Okay. Cool.

So last night I connected to Jose’s energy again and we had a nice “chat.”  I will say that we aren’t so much “talking” – it’s more a strong sense of his reactions, emotions, and sometimes an image flash, or a brief phrase that comes more as an imprint than an utterance.

Halloween Tarot
Karin Lee, Kipling West
US Games, 1997

I like Jose’s energy, it feels good.  Since that first, intense connection, things have mellowed, and I’m enjoying learning a little more about him.  I asked him about his relationship with Jorge’s mother (they were never married, but had six children together – later on they split up). I pulled the King of Cups and the 6 of Cups reversed.  I sensed that he had loved Irma, and always had caring feelings toward her.  That they may have been soul mates of a sort, but the romantic aspect to their relationship simply ran its course.  They remained friends, but couldn’t stay formal partners.

I told him about his grandchildren.  Isa, our oldest, is my child from a former relationship, and Jorge legally adopted her.  I told Jose that although Isa is mine from before I met Jorge, she really needs both Jorge and Jose, and I felt Jose’s sense of pleasure and willingness to be present for her.  I told him that his grandson, Gabriel, is very precocious, and we call him a “true” Destrades because his personality is so closely tied to so many of the men from the Destrades clan. I immediately felt a very strong sense of fierce pride and happiness, and I pulled a card and it was the Emperor – the over-arching patriarch of the family.  I smiled.

I asked Jose to tell me something about his relationship with his own mother, and I pulled the Justice card.  It was a relationship with a profound theme of fairness (and consequently unfairness) that deeply impacted their ability to love each other.

Halloween Tarot
Karin Lee, Kipling West
US Games, 1997

Finally I asked how Jose felt about us finally communicating, and what he felt the benefit was, and I pulled the 3 of Wands – the beginning phase of a journey, a new, energy-based relationship.  The three brought to mind me, Jose and Jorge.  Interestingly, the card that represents my own role as a Tarot reader (and perhaps budding medium as well) is the Page of Wands: the mediator between worlds, the messenger, the gatekeeper, the guide, the facilitator.  So seeing the three wands builds on that, and it represents my role as the go-between.

I hope that my husband will be able to connect directly with his own father some day.  He deeply appreciates the fact that his father is able to be present with us, but his pain is keen, and setting up a direct line would be ideal.  Fortunately Jorge has those sensitivities, and I expect that he’ll be able to accomplish that at some point.  The last time I connected with his father, I had failed to mention it to Jorge.  Suddenly he walked into the room where I was sitting and said “I hate it when that happens! I just saw something or someone in the hallway standing there!”  And I said “Oh!  It was probably your dad!!”  That was surprising, and also really nice.

So this journey is interesting, touching, wonderful, kind of crazy, and very humbling.  I’m grateful to have a way to develop a relationship of sorts with Jose, and to be able to provide a link between him and his son, who desperately needs him. Last night Jorge told me, “If I had gone to some stranger and they’d told me that they were able to sense my dad, and send me a message, I’d say it was cool, but I wouldn’t be as moved. I love the fact that the person receiving messages is you.”  That filled me up to the brim, I’ll just put it that way. <3