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2014 through the Gilded Tarot

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged 2013, Review, tree of knowledge on January 3, 2015| Leave a Comment »

A new tradition I have begun is to review my Year Oracle or Tarot Spread after the year has completed. You can see my 2013 here: 2013 Through the Faerie Looking-Glass.

I draw one card for each month, and then one more card for the entire year. I record which cards I drew and keywords about the card and then put the notebook away until the end of the year to analyze the results. (This meets the needs of my analytical Virgo Ascendant and my magical Pisces Sun!)

For 2014, I used the Gilded Tarot deck with art by Ciro Marchetti and a companion book by Barbara Moore. Each is accomplished with many other works to their names, (one must only Google them to see…)

This spread was drawn in the liminal time between 2013 and 2014 that still feels like the Old Year, but might really be the New Year! I am about to draw one for 2015 to see what will be, but what follows here is how this year went down! It is amazingly and divinely accurate… (They always are!)

January – 9 of Cups

Sharing – Opening Home – Gratitude

I was feeling gratitude in January. I’d had time off work for the holidays (a luxury I treasure during the Dark Time of the year), a new calendar put together for the year (no mean feat), and I was preparing my home for 6 new students to begin study in early February! I love sharing my path with my coven.

February – 9 of Pentacles

Accomplishment & Pride – Well-earned

Starting a new course of study as in depth as we do in my coven can be daunting and not for the faint at heart… 6 students began and I was very proud of the 5 new students who made it through the first month! But I think this card and January are about my feelings for myself. It is good.

March – 4 of Swords

Need to regroup – Find your Center – Use Spiritual Foundation

I definitely got in touch with my spiritual foundation. I learned about Despacho’s which are a wonderful and magical way to dispatch a message to the Universe. I also spent a day with a dear sister-of-the-heart finding ‘my muse’ for her Teaching Certification in The Color of Woman Method of Intentional Creativity. I was inspired and still look at my painting and think of the symbolism in it and the memory of that day. You can learn more here: http://sacredriverart.com/

April – King of Wands

Focused – Determined – Driven – Be aware of intolerance & bossiness

By April, my job was demanding more of my time for a huge project, and this card fits that. In the coven, two students’ jobs are demanding more of their time, with one taking a temporary position in another state and going on sabbatical and another realizing that this may not be the best time to study with us. It is a labor of love, with the keyword being labor.

May – Ace of Swords

Gift of thought & intellect – Words can heal or hurt – Communicate well

I attended the Association for the Study of Women in Mythology conference in San Antonio in May and it was certainly a gift for my intellect and ideas. I am still thinking about things I learned there that shattered myths we have taken for granted. A Gift you can find more about here: http://womenandmyth.org/

June – Queen of Swords

Confidence – Ease in World – Lack emotion – Allow others to act as they see fit

The Tree of Knowledge Coven presents the Midsummer-Litha public Ritual for the Texas Local Council of Covenant of the Goddess and we ROCKED! I am very proud. You can see the schedule of Sabbats here: http://www.txcog.org/txcogrituals.html

July – King of Pentacles

Impatience – Wield authority & talent wisely – Willing to work hard for material things

By July, the student who had taken a sabbatical has decided not to return. There are 3 students still working hard and dedicating themselves to the Goddess and Wicca. I’m learning patience. Again.

August – 4 of Wands

Time of Abundance and Contentment – Happiness

In August, I travel home to see my grown son and my grandson, my brother and sister, and my elderly father. Only my men-folk still live in Salt Lake City, Utah. My sister travels from the top of the country and I travel from the bottom and we meet in the middle for several days. I have long said I go ‘home’ to “Fill Up My Tank with Love” at least once a year. Then I fly to Grand Council in Atlanta where I get to see my Witch-kin. It is definitely a time of abundance and contentment.

September – Ace of Wands

Don’t ignore opportunities – Gifts from human hands – Inspiration

Work is so busy I hardly have time to think. But my coven inspires me with their moons and rituals. The new students do a wonderful moon for their first time and it rocks. My Maiden shows me opportunities to grow with her dedication and creativity. These are my gifts and inspiration.

October – Ace of Pentacles

Gifts of resources; money or time – Be grateful – Temptation to be greedy or undervalue

I get to spend a wonderful weekend with my coven at our annual Coven Retreat in the wilds of Oklahoma’s Broken Bow area glamping (glamorously camping in a cabin!) This is my gift of time with my family-of-the-heart.

November – Justice

Being called to do something. Face it with courage & action. Don’t ignore the dance & music of your own heart.

My father passes away after a short illness that we only learn about when I visited in August. I was there when they told him stage 4 lung cancer and it knocked the wind from me. This blow is harder than I imagined it would be. I had scheduled to visit him over Thanksgiving, but he passed over the veil the day after Veteran’s Day. I lose another student who has decided that this is not her path. The loss is hard, but I also initiate my first male member to my coven. A wonderful priest in the making and I celebrate in my heart for him.

December – 4 of Cups

Don’t quest for perfection and not see reality – See what is in front of you

I travel home on the day after Thanksgiving to lay my dad to rest. He is interred with an Honor Guard on December 1 and my grief shades the Yule celebrations for the rest of the month. It is hard to see what is in front of you when you have lost what you want. Loss seems to be the keyword for the month and I move through my days like being in a dream.

Card for the Year – Temperance

Moderation – Temper extremes – Moderate life in all ways; physical, emotional, spiritual, & intellectual

This card does not look at all like the description to me. The description for the year is balance. Be balanced in all things. A worthy objective to always strive for. But the art on the card looks like someone who is actively, magically making things happen in a cosmic way. That the woman is looking away and almost behind her or perhaps meditating on the fire she holds in her chalice does not look like moderation. (Maybe my view of moderation is that life would be boring, and this card is not boring.)

Short Tarot education:

Most Tarot decks have 78 cards that are classified as Major Arcana or Minor Arcana. There are 22 Major Arcana and 56 Minor Arcana cards. The Minor Arcana cards are divided into 4 suits that represent the elements; Earth, Air, Fire, and Water and in the case of the Gilded Tarot deck, Pentacles represent Earth, Cups represent Water, while the Wands and Swords can be either Fire or Air. I choose to use Wands for Fire as they represent actions and the spark of life, and Swords for Air because they represent intellect and challenges. (The colors also seem to suggest Wands are Red for Fire and the Swords are Blue for Air despite what Barbara Moore has written in the companion book.)

Analysis:

I drew just 13 cards out of the 78 cards possible in the Tarot, and all but two were from the Minor Arcana. According to Barbara Moore, the Minor Arcana depicts everyday life and aspects over which one has personal control. That makes a lot of sense to me. The only two cards from the Major Arcana that I pulled were for November and one for the entire Year. My father died in November. Definitely something out of my control and the Justice card I pulled for November called me to face something with courage. Seems very fitting.

I pulled 3 of the ACES; Pentacles, Wands, and Swords, and 3 of the FOURS; Cups, Wands, and Swords. ACES are all about new beginnings, opportunities, and gifts and FOURS are all about structure, stability, and stagnation. I shuffle my cards very well, and I choose from all over the deck so it seems very telling that I have pulled THREE of each of these cards. They represent HALF of the year!

As a High Priestess to the Tree of Knowledge Wiccan coven, I take new students each year, (or so – sometimes it takes more than a year before I take a whole new batch of students.) I am very passionate about my work as a High Priestess and teacher and this year began a new student year in February with 6 new students. There were many new beginnings, opportunities, and gifts throughout the year but also challenges to structure and stability with the loss of students and the potential of stagnation by the end of the year due to loss and grief. I can easily say half my year concerned these aspects.

I also pulled 3 Court Cards; 2 Kings (Pentacles and Wands) and 1 Queen (Swords) and 2 of the NINES; Cups and Pentacles.

According to Barbara Moore, Queens are mature and reflective and nurture others but can be prone to obsessions, while Kings are mature and expressive, organize and control external matters, but sometimes at the expense of personal issues. NINES are all about fruition and attainment, and these Court cards related to Ideas, Actions, and Resources.

There was much fruition and attainment with one student initiating into the coven in November, but both of the NINES cards were pulled for January and February. I think the fruition and attainment is more personal for me. I have worked hard in all areas to be where I am at this point in my life. I feel I am the King in these aspects of being driven in the areas of Ideas, Actions, and Resources, and I do often neglect myself for my passions (maybe even a little obsessively, like the Queen!) It fits that these aspects pertain to most of the rest of the year.

Pulling just 2 Major Arcana; Justice for November and Temperance for the whole year is telling. I’ve written above about November and a card from the Major Arcana to represent the whole year does seem fitting. In the end, though we can actively engage in our life, the whole of it can be seen as out of our control. We do not bring the challenges or the opportunities into our lives, we just meet them and take them.

Temperance for the entire year seems the ideal, and I cannot honestly say that I succeeded. The other cards each make sense, and are perfectly in tune with the year and very telling in their divination, but Barbara Moore says this card more than any other in the tarot, speaks of perfect balance, perfectly expressed. The Temperance in my life may be my partner, a Rock of a man who is very balanced in life. He travels this journey with me, ‘whither he wants or no’, just because he loves me. He is my Temperance.

My life, my year, is wholly my life, lived to the fullest. There were highs and there were lows. Each challenge was met and each opportunity was embraced. I spent more time with family and friends. I spent more time exploring my spirituality and less time at work. I have what I need financially and am healthy physically and feel very fortunate for that. My Rock of a man keeps me grounded and I am grateful.

I’ve learned and grown. I’ve loved and been loved. It is enough.

May it be so for you.

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SOMETIMES YOU’RE THE BUG – AH PUCH and KWAN YIN

Posted in Uncategorized on November 22, 2014| Leave a Comment »

After what happened last week, reading this helps me understand.

From http://www.bigskyastrology.com/mars-conjunct-pluto-sometimes-youre-the-bug/

MARS CONJUNCT PLUTO: SOMETIMES YOU’RE THE BUG

Posted November 14th, 2014

One morning last week, just as the transiting Mar/Pluto conjunction in Capricorn was rising, I was falling. I had just set down the cat’s food dish, and when I stood up, a violent spasm in my lower back sent me crumpled to the hard, tile kitchen floor. As I lay there writhing in agony, the cats ambled over to investigate. Spike apparently decided that if I was screaming, I was still alive; so he calmly started eating his breakfast a few inches from my ear, in a show of Mars/Pluto ruthlessness and Capricornian pragmatism.

As Mark Knopfler once wrote, “Sometimes you’re the windshield, sometimes you’re the bug.” When Mars and Pluto come together, anything soft and slow is going to get squished against hard, fast-moving reality. Much of what happens during this roughly one week transit seems sudden, like a slap across the face; but the underlying cause has been building for a while. I’d known for days that I needed to do some yoga to stretch things out and relieve the building tension in my back. Driven by deadlines and obligations, I’d ignored the warning signs and let circumstances twist me into a pretzel. The next thing I knew, I was crawling to the sofa to wait, powerless, for the next spasm.

Transits involving Pluto always reflect our part in a larger, collective struggle with power and control. Struggling for control creates fear and tension that collect deep below the surface until something—say, Mars—sets off volcanic emotions that melt them into hard, unyielding glass.

Even the transits of fast-moving planets like Mars can express themselves potently. When Mars and Pluto, two hard-edged characters, come together in any kind of aspect, little bugs like you and me need to look both ways before we fly across the road. We rarely see the windshield coming until we’re already on the floor.

The solution is to be a smarter bug. Fly higher; the hard, fearful places are down low, and that’s where the danger is. Don’t let yourself get sucked into petty disputes. Fly faster, in the direction of your own choosing. Recognize when you are powerless, and retreat to fly another day.

Transiting Mars/Pluto aspects: conjunction (Nov. 10, 2014), sextile (Jan. 30, 2015), square (March 11, 2015), trine (April 21, 2015), opposition (July 15, 2015). These are the dates the aspects are exact; the influence of them is usually felt about one week before and after the exact aspect.

[from Faelind – Conjunctions are the strongest influences, usually beneficial, but depends on one’s chart. Sextiles are harmonious or favorable, but require effort. Squares are challenging and stressful but, like obstacles overcome, can build character. Trines are most harmonious and require no effort on your part to bring ease. Oppositions are most unharmonious and bring strain and separation.]

On Monday, November 10^th beginning mid-morning and lasting until early evening, I had such a horrible pain in my right side I thought about driving myself to the hospital. I didn’t feel it was a heart attack (as if I would know-LOL), but the pain was excruciating. I could not understand it. I was afraid. Afraid of being ill, afraid of dying with so much left to do, afraid because I did not understand what was going on. (Methinks this may have been what AH PUCH the God of Fear, the card I drew from the God deck during class on November 9^th may have been all about.)

I didn’t drive myself to the hospital, but continued working, and stayed afraid all day. When my SO got home from work, I told him about my pain and asked him did I look all right? He responded, “Do I need to take you to the hospital?” and then told me I better not be dying, he wasn’t having none of that – we laughed…

I usually called my Dad on Monday’s because I am so busy on the weekends. I didn’t call him that night.

Tuesday evening, my brother, Dean returns from an out-of-town trip and is called by my step-sister who tells him that Dad is doing really bad and she is scared. My step-sister, (who seems mentally challenged) has been staying with my Dad to help him as he had gotten weaker and weaker and more winded just walking from room to room. The hospice people saw my father each day, but were not there in the evenings. Dean tells her to call the hospice nurse and he meets him there.

He learns from the hospice nurse that my Dad’s right lung has stopped working and is either filled with fluid or the lining has filled with fluid and has collapsed the lung. My dad never complained of the pain but the nurse tells my brother that my dad is in a lot of pain. The nurse gives my dad a breathing treatment and morphine to calm him down so he can breathe a little easier and to help with the pain. My Dad, ever as stubborn as I am, does not want to sleep in his easy chair where it is easier to breathe, but wants to go to bed.

My brother calls me when they have just put dad to bed and tells me the nurse thinks he won’t make it through the night. It is too late for my sister or I to fly there from 1,200 miles away, so we can only cry from afar.

My dad doesn’t wake in the morning. It is expected. It is the day after Veteran’s Day and 12 days before I was to fly home to visit him.

Since my Father passed, I have thought about that pain and have been hard on myself for not understanding what was going on. Why didn’t I know it was about my Dad? Why didn’t I realize that it was my Dad’s time so I could get a plane ticket and fly home Monday to see him before he passed? I’ve been very hard on myself for not knowing the signals, for not interpreting the signs, for not being in touch with the ‘otherworld’ that I am so much a part of. Why hadn’t I called him Monday night? Even if he couldn’t talk for lack of breath, I could have talked to him…

My sweet cousin calls me when she is told the news. I had called my Uncle to let him know. I tell her about the pain, and she said for as long as I’ve known you, you were always in touch with the otherworld. But she encourages me to be gentle with myself for not knowing what it meant. Even you cannot always understand the signs, she said. (Methinks she is the KWAN YIN, Goddess of compassion that I so needed at the moment, and who appeared to me when we pulled Goddess cards at class November 9^th.)

When I tell my SO how disappointed in myself I am that I did not put 2 and 2 together, he says, maybe you should look at this differently. “Maybe it was your Dad saying good bye to you the only way he could.” (Perhaps he is my Kwan Yin too…)

Tonight I read this excerpt from Mama Donna Henes and break into hard tears…

“The relentless bombardment of losses that batters us in every area of our lives in midlife effectively strips us of any unrealistic, immature confidence that we once might have had that we were safe in an unchanging and dependable world. Though we may have been shielded by our youthful sense of indestructibility as well as by our notoriously death-denying culture, we now understand, because we have experienced it, that nothing and no one stays the same forever, that all things must end sometime, that shit does, indeed, happen. We have seen what we have seen.”

Death is the shadow of life and we have seen what we have seen.

Embrace today. It is all we have.

This too, shall pass…

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I am a deep well…

Posted in Uncategorized on September 29, 2014| Leave a Comment »

I am a deep well

Fed by a sacred source.

Reflecting the moonlight, the starlight, the sunlight –

For those who seek the depths.

I am a strong stone

Shimmering Labradorite magic.

Protecting those dear to my heart –

For those who need my Moonstone shine.

I am a burning fire

Passionate for my craft.

Inspiring spirit, birthing creativity, and growing trees –

For those who wish upon magical stars.

I am a wise word

Sounding through the ether.

Teaching sacred arts and living crafts –

For those who would be Witch, Priestess, Priest.

I am a deep well…

Poem by blogger – Me!

Picture found here: http://the-hanging-garden.tumblr.com/post/97726511580

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The World Card

Posted in Uncategorized on March 20, 2014| Leave a Comment »

On Spring – Ostara – My Tarot card of the day is The World. I felt on top of the world today. Spring is really here and life is beautiful!

The World card is the last of the major arcana and likewise brings a close to the paths that were previously chosen. It represents the completion of a cycle and acknowledgement of the wisdom gained from our total experience. The World represents the celebration of a long and insightful life, one full of love and despair. The experiences of the physical are now entwined in the spirit binding us together with both God and Goddess and our true selves. The World also represents the wonder and beauty of seeing who we truly are and how important our spirit really is in the larger scheme of things. When the World makes itself known in the tarot deck you can be completely sure that true self-awareness and love of Life has been found. The World encompasses peace, perfection, love, honor, and grace. Everything that we have strived to accomplish now comes into being. We become one with the self and with the All-Life.

The World

What has traditionally been known as the World card points to the presiding intelligence, called “Sophia,” or Wisdom, which upholds life on this and all worlds. A more precise title for this card might be “the Soul of the World,” also applicable as a symbol of personal empowerment and freedom. In most Tarot decks it is a female figure that has become our standard World image. She originates in Hebrew, Gnostic and Alchemical lore, and stands between heaven and earth as the Cosmic Mother of Souls, the Wife of God and our protector from the karmic forces we have set loose upon the Earth in our immaturity and ignorance.

Where the Empress energy secures and fertilizes our terrestrial lives, the goddess of The World invites us into cosmic citizenship — once we come to realize our soul’s potential for it. Just as the Chariot stands for success in achieving a separate Self, and Temperance represents achievement of mental and moral health, the World card announces the awakening of the soul’s Immortal Being, accomplished without the necessity of dying.

This card, like the Sun, is reputed to have no negative meaning no matter where or how it appears. If the Hermetic axiom is “Know Thyself”, this image represents what becomes known when the true nature of Self is followed to creative freedom and its ultimate realization.

The World’s Meaning

The World is an indicator of a major and inexorable change, of tectonic breadth. This change represents a chance for you to bring about a desirable end to the Old and a good beginning to the New. It is indicative of growing maturity, a sense of inner balance and deeper understanding. It suggests that you may be approaching a more final sense of identity, and the security in the self that comes with age. It also represents the falling away of boundaries, sometimes in the effusive sense of the spiritual, but sometimes in a purely physical sense, indicating travels or journeys in the future.

The World Tarot Card

Do you feel fulfilled? Have you completed a grand project exactly as you had planned? Are you reaping the benefits from your labor and beginning to live your dreams? Do you feel in control of a relationship that is mutually beneficial to the both of you? Has that joining together created wholeness in your life that you longed for? If these and other feelings of involvement and completion dominate your life, expect to see the highest numbered Tarot card of them all appear in your reading: The World.

Floating in the center of a blue sky is a nude woman, wrapped in a scarf that covers her pelvis and flaps behind her shoulders and below her feet. She holds a baton in each hand and has her hair braided tight and bejeweled. A luscious laurel wreath crown surrounds her, its green leaves wrapped at the top and bottom by a red cloth band. In each of the four corners of the card is a portrait. A man in the upper left looks in profile over at an eagle that returns the gaze. In the lower left a bull and across from him is a lion, both staring your way. Each of these is illustrated with a billowy light-colored cloud as their backing.

The woman is dancing in the abandonment of complete victory, surrounded by a victor’s crown. The wreath is the equivalent of a trophy: in ancient times, chariot race winners would be crowned with the laurel. The lack of any solid ground on a card called “The World” might seem ironic, but the illustration depicts the feeling that you get when you have conquered your world. The four faces in the clouds represent the fixed signs of the zodiac (Aquarius the Water-bearer in the upper left, Scorpio’s higher status as an eagle in the upper right, the Taurus bull in the lower left and the Leo lion in the lower right) and relate to similar depictions on the Wheel of Fortune card. But whereas they are depicted as golden statues on that card, here they are made much more personal with distinct, lifelike portraits. From an illustration of random chance that the Wheel of Fortune foretells, The World card confirms that the highest achievements are being met.