A Mandala for October's Shadow Work Challenge

As I was reading Ellen's blog, Grey Lady's Hearth, yesterday I saw that she is participating in an October Shadow Work Challenge primarily via Instagram, though she'll be posting certain aspects on her blog as well. She posted the challenge, originated by Mnomquah, in case anyone would like to participate:

The first task listed for the Shadow Work challenge is to create a Mandala that reflects who you are at this moment. The final task of this challenge is also to create a Mandala depicting who you feel you've become by the close of the month. I really like how this has been organized and have decided to participate, though I'll probably participate primarily through my blog since I'm a bit slow with Instagram! We'll see!

So last night I settled down with a pencil and sketch pad and started to work on my own Mandala. I didn't put a lot of thought into a particular vision for it, I simply started to create, and allowed it to develop on its own:

At first I considered leaving it simply a gray-scale pencil drawing, but then I decided to add color. I asked Lourdes, my crafty kid, to dig me up some colored pencils and she came through quite nicely. So I set out to bring some life to my Mandala:

The textured appearance looks almost like watercolor paper, but it's just the shadow of the screen that the sunlight was filtering through as I took the photo! Considering that I didn't plan out the image, it was interesting to review the symbols that ended up here. I see signs of hope and new life in the rainbow and the sprouting plants. I drew a sun and crescent moon over my forehead, a connection to my sign in Ifá, but I realized that I'd drawn a waxing crescent which was cool - there is growth there rather than retreat. Considering that I've felt very overwhelmed with various aspects of my life of late, this is a nice symbol that, even if I can't always see it, there are indeed seeds of positivity unfolding.....!

Captain of My Ship

I was too busy last week to pull my normal "draw for the week ahead" and I even managed to forego my Monday-draw for my Facebook page. Finally yesterday afternoon I settled down to pull a "where I'm at, and what to do about it" reading. Rather than looking at the week ahead I decided to simply do a check-in for myself. Later I realized that it was not only the evening of the full moon, but it was the full moon-eclipse-bloodmoon-in-Aries. Wow! That is quite the lunar action! So not only did my reading make sense for me, it took on even greater meaning once I learned about the moon activity taking place on that very same day.

I pulled the following line of three cards: 10 of Swords, 7 of Wands reversed, Emperor

Prisma Visions Tarot/J. Eads

Often when I look at a line such as this, I read it almost like Lenormand. The first card highlights the matter at hand, the middle card illuminates an important element in regard to the matter (how I feel about it, an effect or impact, etc.) and the third card is a result or conclusion, sort of a "what to do or be aware of next." There is some flexibility to the interpretation, but in a general sense this is what I do.

Here I have the 10 of Swords as the "matter at hand," which is interesting because I pulled this card as representative of my month of October about a week ago. It's quite true in terms of the general state of things in my environment. I'm exhausted - feeling rather overworked and stressed out by my job. In some ways it's a good thing, and I always appreciate a challenge. But there are a lot of unknowns at play at the moment that have had me questioning the point of all that I'm doing. So in a physical sense, the aspects of this card that speak to exhaustion and even back pain are right on the money. In another sense I do also feel that I'm in a phase that's closing out to make way for some new thing that I can't yet see. What I like about the 10 of Swords is the aspect of closing out the old, putting matters to rest, scraping away the ineffective in order to make way for healthy growth. And in some not-so-literal ways, I feel some of that unfolding.

The 7 of Wands appeared reversed, which does make sense, because when I feel overwhelmed it's like having my flame muted or dimmed. Rather than simply meeting challenges head-on and knowing I can handle them, I have moments where I want to hide in a quiet place by myself and take a break from the world; moments when I am not so confident that I can handle change in the way that I want to do. What the 7 of Wands encourages me to do is to remember that I can do it, always. That my "down" moments are brief and fleeting, and that all of this is reminiscent of something like the discomforts of labor - difficult, painful, draining, but ultimately leading to something important and good. In the image on this card a person is alone, leaping from stump to stump out over a lakeshore. The sky is alight with color and movement. I've done this before. I've faced difficult situations and I've navigated them not without anxiety, but with grace and ability nonetheless. By remembering what I've done in the past I can fortify myself for the present and future.

The Emperor made me smile when I saw him. I've pulled this card several times of late, which is a nice complement to the Empress that has been following me as well. The Emperor reminds me that I have the power and strength to be the captain of my ship. He is the great architect, creating and organizing the structure of the surrounding world such that order is established and progress can be made. I find immense comfort and encouragement in that energy. Above all the Emperor is connected to Aries, and I was born with the moon in Aries, which is where it is currently located during this super-full-blood-moon eclipse. Aries underscores boldness, power, and forceful-yet-controlled action. If I was looking for extra strength to get me through this time of transition, I couldn't have asked for a better card. So, taking the Emperor into my heart and soul over the next few weeks, I'll focus on this:

"To be like the fiery ram, captain of my ship."

Hanging In There

I have been totally exhausted lately; over the past week or two I've been so entrenched in work that I've had very little time to even think about much else. This weekend I've finally earned a solid three days off and I'm taking full advantage of them! Today, for the first time in years, I rode my bike.

By Karl Ramentol

As my husband and I were soaring down the road, inhaling the city-style outdoor aromas of road-side barbecue, Chinese take-out, grass clippings, and Eau de Exhaust Fumes, I just couldn't help but smile. What have I been missing!

Tomorrow I may well wake up with a sore rear end, but it was so worth it. And hey, maybe I'll even do it again ;-)

Mabon Tarot Blog Hop: Princess of Cups

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Welcome to the Mabon 2015 Blog Hop! Please use the links at the bottom or top of this post to navigate to the other wonderful blogs in this circle of divination thinkers, writers, and creators.

For this second-harvest festival hop, our wrangler, Maureen Aisling Duffy-Boose, asked us to think of a Tarot card that embodies this time of year for us, and then to create our own card using whatever materials suited our fancy. I am a drawer and painter primarily, so my first thought was to head for the canvas and acrylics. But then I thought about trying out a new (to me) medium - digital/photographic art! So here goes.....

When asked to consider a card that highlights the harvest season, autumn, most completely, I immediately thought of the Princess of Cups from the DruidCraft deck. In fact I will never forget how I felt the first time I laid eyes on it after having purchased it several years ago...the colors in rich, deep reds, the orange leaves preparing to fall into the brisk breeze...the golden fields in the background, and the cool calmness of the water. I love autumn, I'll just clear that up right now. It's my favorite season, and one of the more difficult adjustments I've had to make with living in the near-tropical south has been losing the earthy charm of this time of year. I have rediscovered it to some extent in the Florida winter, which is quite like autumn in the north, complete even with certain trees that change color and lose their foliage (usually in mid-December).

Still, the apple-cinnamon-orchard-pumpkin-chill-campfiresmoke-mystery is a little bit harder to find.

DruidCraft Tarot/W. Worthington

That said, the minute September 1st rolls around I start to feel an undercurrent of excitement - the thrill of the impending change in season. It's subtler down here, but it's still noticeable if you pay attention. Even in the at-times-oppressive 90-degree heat, I am thinking of baking, cider, and pumpkin pie.

So I knew that I wanted to recreate the Princess of Cups in honor of this second harvest festival of Mabon. Interestingly as I went a-researching I found (thanks to my trusty Understanding Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot, by DuQuette, 2003) that the season of the Princess of Cups begins at the Fall Equinox and rules Libra, Scorpio, and Sagittarius! Coincidence? Synchronicity? Perhaps!

Princess of Cups/O. Destrades

I chose my daughter, Lourdes, to be my Princess, and I used my iPad and an art app to create the effects over the photo. While her Sun sign is Taurus, pretty much everything else in her chart is water, and she is certainly the most sensitive of my three kids. In this image the core color scheme highlights autumn: oranges, reds, browns and black. Representing the pure essence of water, streams of the element shoot from her finger and hand, arcing up into the sky and then down and around her body. She is young, and carries the innocence of this Court, but her expression is calm and knowing.

Inspired by the process of working on the Princess of Cups, I also created the Princess of Disks using the image of my oldest daughter, Isabella, who is a triple Earth (Capricorn, Virgo, Taurus)!

May your creativity always flow! Happy Mabon!

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The Transformative Power of Nettle

Last night, inspired by the Guardians card from my new Druid Plant Oracle, I made myself a tea of elder flowers and elder- and hawthorne berries.

Druid Plant Oracle

This morning I decided to pull a daily from the same deck, and I drew: Nettle.

Aside from the nettle plant itself, the first two symbols that stood out to me were the snake and the butterfly. The snake doesn't feel threatening at all, rather I get a strong sense of calm and the transformative qualities of this sacred reptile - the shedding of its old skin to reveal the new. The butterfly has similar attributes of release and transformation, as its caterpillar form encases itself in a cocoon, later emerging as a beautiful winged creature.

Druid Plant Oracle

Nettle is one of the most nutritious herbs around, containing high levels of antioxidants, Vitamin K, Vitamin A, Niacin, B-Complex, just to name a few. It can be consumed as a vegetable, made into tea, even used as a hair tonic. The irony, perhaps, is that nettle stings! I remember walking along country roads in southeast England when I lived there for a time as a teenager, and making the mistake of brushing up again nettle bushes - they do indeed hurt. It's interesting that such a valuable, nutritious herb comes in such inhospitable packaging. And yet somewhere along the way humans came to understand its great gifts and offerings.

When I make nettle tea I find it quite earthy and almost hearty - like eating rather than drinking; not because its consistency is thick, but because its essence is so rich. To harvest nettle you have to wear gloves and take care that  bare skin doesn't come in contact with the leaves. But the reward from the effort is well worth it.

Nettle signifies transformation, and symbolizes the gifts that are disguised in hardships. It reminds us that though change is often uncomfortable, the product - the end result - is worthwhile when all is said and done. If we can see past the bitterness of transition, we will eventually behold the sweetness waiting for us beyond.

On that note, I'm off to brew some nettle tea!

Joy in a Box: Druid Plant Oracle

It all started one afternoon as I was minding my own business (as usual), when suddenly I came across a listing for the Druid Plant Oracle where the seller was asking for $150. I stopped in my virtual tracks. That's a lot of money. That usually only happens when a deck goes out of print, and I wasn't aware that this had happened to the Plant Oracle. I have had the Druid Animal Oracle for a couple of years and enjoy it immensely; it's a great combination of nice writing (by Philip and Stephanie Carr-Gomm) and beautiful artwork (Will Worthington. Come on.). The Plant Oracle (by the same author-artist team) was one I'd wanted to acquire at some point, but just hadn't gotten around to quite yet. Now that I saw that it was on the market at such exorbitant prices I was pretty disappointed. So I did some investigating and found that the Book Depository was selling it for $20! I bought it immediately, with glee. But then I started to feel uncertain. I noticed that there were two listings on the Book Depository - one for the cards, which were listed as "unavailable," and one for the book which is what I'd bought. So I reasoned that it made sense that I'd bought the book for such a reasonable price and that it would come without the cards. I was a little unhappy, but at the same time glad to at least have the book. After all, I love working with herbs, so I thought it would be a nice addition to my herbal book collection. I also have the Druid Animal Oracle, the Wildwood and the DruidCraft Tarot decks (all illustrated by Will Worthington) which often feature the plants covered in the Druid Plant Oracle, so I decided it was worth having the opportunity to delve deeper into card meanings by learning more of the lore associated with these plants. And plus, despite not having the cards to work with, I could always do bibliomancy!

Several weeks later the package arrived in the mail, and as I opened it up I gasped with joy:

It was in fact the entire kit! I ripped the plastic wrapping off, lifted the cover of the box, and inside I found a book, and (cue the angelic voices singing) the cards!

It was a good moment, to say the very least. I am so thrilled to have this deck and the excellent accompanying book in my collection. I spent an hour or so on the couch in the evening flipping through each card, looking some of them up in the guide book, reveling in the art work, discovering which plants were included. I was very happy to find many of my dearest herbal friends, such as Elder, Meadowsweet, Plantain, Clover, and Yarrow, along with some new-to-me plants like Celtic Bean.

So I decided to pull two cards to help "break in" my new, dear deck:

What is my current strength?: Mint
How can I challenge myself (to be/do better)?: Flax

Mint. The slight irony here is that perhaps two hours before doing this reading I was out in my garden weeding around my mint plant, thinking a lot about it, and how I can't wait for it to spread and fill out. Some people try to tame mint because it likes to take over space, but in my case I would welcome it; the soil is sandy and sparse in nutrients so herbs do best here. I have happy rosemary and sage plants, a rather static-but-healthy lavender, and then my newcomers, lemon balm and mint. Over the weekend I was chatting with some friends about the benefits of mint, so it was nice to see it show up here.

Mint, according to the book, is about clarity, focus, and creative drive. It is about the attentiveness needed to take advantage of new opportunities, and encourages being proactive rather than waiting around for something to come your way. As a "strength" this makes sense because over the past month or so I've been working on a lot of new projects, and have had a couple of new opportunities offered to me, both of which required quite a lot of focus, clarity, and active engagement. I do feel that I've held my own in the face of these at-times-challenging, yet invigorating, tasks and projects.

Interestingly, Flax is quite a different - almost opposite - energy. Flax encourages relaxation, acceptance, and integration. It challenges me to go with the flow, to honor the interconnectedness of all things, and to ease into change and transition. With Flax, the good that you put out into the world will come back around to you. In terms of my past month I feel that the overall message here is that I've done well with applying myself fully to the important activities in my life, and now I can step back and see what develops out of the work I've been doing. Rather than continuing to push forward, it is time to settle in to "what will be" and to open myself to synchronicities and communication with others in my flaxen web.

All in all, I am super happy with this deck. And I really love the details in each card. Aside from showcasing the herbs, there are fully illustrated scenes I want to jump right into. Last night I spent quite a while reading about the Sweet Track, a neolithic, raised foot trail in southwestern England, which is featured on the Mint card. I'd never heard of it before, and was entirely intrigued. I'm looking forward to learning what more this lovely deck has to offer!

Maferefun Yalorde!

Today is the feast day of Ochun, lady of the sweet waters, of love and honey and joy.

Artist: Hubert Escobar

Ochun is considered the youngest of the Orishas, and though she represents the beauty and sweetness of life, she is a source of profound strength and power. One of my favorite patakines (sacred stories) about Ochun tells about a time where there was a great drought on earth and everyone was suffering. Other Orishas had tried to reach Olodumare (God) to tell him what was going on, but were unsuccessful. Finally, Ochun climbed on the back of a peacock (one of her sacred symbols) and flew up through the sky, past the scorching sun, and to the realm of Olodumare. On the way, the heat of the sun had burned the feathers of the peacock, such that it no longer had the lovely, colorful plumage. This is said to be the first vulture. Ochun herself was also badly burnt, her beauty marred by fire. Olodumare realized that she had sacrificed her vanity for the well-being of the world, and he healed her, though her beauty was not restored. This highlights how Ochun's beauty is not solely physical - her strength, love, and beauty shine on the inside. Olodumare heard her plea, and allowed the rains to fall again on earth. Since then Ochun has been known as a messenger of God.

Ochun is dear to me. Aside from Elegua and my guardian Orisha, Obatalá, she was one of the first saints to step forward in my life as a guide, support, teacher, and wellspring of deep love and joy. On this day, her feast day, as we openly honor and praise her, I feel her abundant felicity in my heart, a special kind of lightness that I clearly sense is her sacred essence coursing through me. 

My son, Gabriel, is Ochun's son. While all of my children are loving and expressive in their own ways, Gabriel is by far the most demonstrative, both physically and verbally. He's a total romantic. He often says, "You know what?? I love you and I like you!" Every single morning when Lourdes wakes up and stumbles out into the living room, Gabriel lights up and greets her with an affectionate, "Good morning, sweety!!!" He hugs, he snuggles, he loves to be loved, and he adores sneaking into the bathroom to douse himself in my perfume, or his dad's cologne (another attribute of Ochun, ha!). It warms my heart in ways that cannot be expressed adequately in words. This morning he woke up and said, "I'm so happy today!" When he saw his father he said, "Dad, it's Ochun's day!" He picked out a freshly made cookie to offer her, and he helped me light some candles in our window. 

Maferefun Ochun, Yalorde, Yeye...todos los días.