Monday Majors- Theme for the Week: The Moon

Interestingly, to me at least, I have not drawn The Moon for blogging in all this time, which is not to say that I have not drawn The Moon at all.  The Moon and me, we have a great relationship.  I ask questions, and she teases me with shadows of thoughts and whispers that almost make sense, and then I have to chase them down the fairy trail, eager for more, silvery tendrils caressing my face.

I love The Moon.  I think she is beautiful, and I love to bask in her light.  I am not sure the artist of this card loved her as much as I do, though.  The tattered wings of the angel don't seem to be good for much, just a painful reminder of what was, and is no more.  The colors of the card are discordant to me, jarring even.  The wolf on the right and the dog on the left are scruffy, mangy, not seeming to care for themselves as such noble animals usually do.  The valley of shadow the angel is about to pass through seems to be made up of wayward spirits and lost souls.  No help comes from the distant towers, which look on, cold and unfeeling.

I may have some dark places to walk through this week, not inherently evil, but dark nonetheless.  I will have to lean on my own intuition, and I will have to walk through, because my wings are useless, for the moment.  I am filled with fear, but I know the Lord of Light can restore all that has been lost, if only I am brave and true enough to follow where He leads.  The Moon appears to teach us to trust in our deepest knowing, to cause us to stretch and grow, to strengthen our vision in the weaker light of the reflected sun.  I kneel, and I pray, and I remember, "To thine own self be true." and "I will never leave you nor forsake you."

Update: March 28, 2011- The Moon has chosen to manifest itself in my life in interesting ways this week.  I have had several incidents of deeply claircognizant experiences, which my logical mind wants to talk me out of.  Sometimes, I just know things, and there is a feeling of calm over my entire body when that is happening, and what I pay attention to in order to learn to trust.  Sometimes it happens when I am reading for people, but it often just comes unbidden, and I am learning to trust that feeling, because when I follow it in my own life, I always do better, and when I follow it in reading for others, those readings are better.  I'm not gonna lie, though, it's scary as hell...

This card is from the Templar Tarot by Allen Chester, available here.

Monday Majors - Theme for the Week: The Magician

Throughout the time I have been blogging about tarot, I have only drawn The Magician on its' own one other time, and oddly enough, out of the 600+ decks I own, it came from the same one I have been drawn to today, the Templar Tarot.  This rendition of the Magician is still about faith to me, which makes sense as this deck is, for me, deeply spiritual.  I feel good when I use this deck, because it does not ask me to choose between my Christian faith and my belief that the Bible holds some truths, but some are written elsewhere.

The Magician is a card, that at its' root, is about magic.  When we see the Magician, we can ask ourselves, "What does magic mean to me?"  My answer is that it is the conscious act of bringing the Divine into our everyday lives is what makes magic to me.  In this rendition of the card, circumstances are less than ideal.  The spectators are a woebegone lot, yet even the one whose hands have been cut off stretches her stumps forth in praise, in awe, and that is a conscious decision we can make, regardless of our circumstances.  We can choose to honor the Divine, we can choose to dance, if that is our gift, we can choose to worship, we can choose to continue on, whether it's through tears or laughter, or that heady inexplicable mixture of the two, the point is, love is a choice we can make, day by day, minute by minute.

Here is the lotus flower again, to reiterate the point that beauty springs forth from unexpected places, and to remind me that a little guck is a small price to pay for it.

As a theme for the week, The Magician is showing me how to not just invite the presence of sacredness into my life, but how to revel in it, how to let it lift me up and cause my feet to dance, unafraid, in joy and communion.  I am reminded that God meets us where we are, and the only thing we are asked is to be the best selves we can be.

Update, March 21, 2011:  One of the things about the Magician in this deck I did not pay real close attention to is the troubadour aspect to it, the fact that this Magician is a storyteller.  I am a storyteller, too.  Why didn't I see this correlation?  She dances and sings to tell her story, because she has to, and that is why I write, too, because I have to.  Characters spring, fully formed, in my head sometimes, and they demand to be brought to life.  They want their words to be heard, their existence to have meaning.  I write to share the great and sometimes terrible beauty of this world, I write because it's unbearable to me to keep it all locked inside my own mind, and I write because it is the only way to get to peace for me, sometimes.

This card related deeply to my work this week, as I picked up the Magician's tools and began to dig in deeper to my spiritual path, to my own story.  I began a course in Intuitive Astrology, which is the way the stars tell a story, and I feel myself becoming more immersed in the work of being a writer.  I am terrified of that serpent below her feet, and for the moment I am just counting on dancing so deftly it won't have the chance to strike out at me, but soon I will know how to soothe the snake so the thought never even enters its' mind.


This achingly lovely deck is the Templar Tarot by Allen Chester, available here, and an amazing supplemental book of the same name available from Amazon.com

Daily Draw - Strength

This is probably the most unusual Strength card I have ever seen. There is no lion, no ferocious cat, no feminine figure softly subduing him with her gentle touch.

What there is a lonely man, surrounded by horrific items. Bones lay about, even those of a tiny angel. One of the skeletons points accusingly at the man. One angel looks on in compassion, and another sends her healing to him through her hands. A third angel holds back evil spirits, and another simply ignores him. The LWB says this man is trapped in the tower of his mind, forced to face the dark parts of himself.

I can't think of anything we need more Strength for than that. Yet he prays, he moves forward, he looks at these ugly things, these things that he has done, and he acknowledges them, but he does not let them become who he is. He is being healed and protected by his guardian angels.

The LWB relates the figure as Bernard of Clairvaux, a French abbot. He preached the Second Crusade, an action I can well imagine he feels remorse for in this scene. Adoration and communion is what God desires, not killing in His name.

I have made so many mistakes in my life, and sometimes the same one more than once. Am I strong enough to learn from them, heal, and let go? Or am I going to stay in that dark tower of the soul?

To be honest, I prefer the bright, sunshine-y image we see in the Radiant Rider Waite. I can relate to that feminine figure, and I can wish to be like her, exerting her will through compassion and love, emerging victorious. But not all victories look like that, and not all battles are fought outside. Some of the most important ones take place within ourselves. I will remember today to treat myself gently as I face some of my self inflicted demons. We often speak to ourselves in ways we would be horrified to speak to another person, but yelling at our inner selves is about as productive as yelling at a child, and just as damaging. We shrink from ourselves when we start that nasty inner dialogue, but there is nowhere to hide. That mean, cruel voice we sometimes use with ourselves causes us to freeze, to not be able to move forward, for fear of recrimination.

When dealing with tarot for self discovery, I have found that most often the figures on the cards relate to different aspects of self. I feel tender and bruised inside right now, and I want to be treated with love and compassion, but I have to do that for myself first and foremost, be my own angel, so to speak, so that I can have an abundance of those things to share with the people I interact with, in turn.





These images are from the Templar Tarot by Allen Chester, and Radiant Rider Waite for US Games.

Daily Draw - The Magician

Are you ever just haunted by a card? I mean, it seems to want to just show up EVERYWHERE? For me, for the past couple months, it has been the Magician. I have drawn in no less than once a week since the beginning of the year as a daily card, and if I do a reading for myself, it is almost a given he will show up. We are getting on good terms, him and I. Or today, her and I, rather. I am bringing you another beautiful image from the Templar Tarot today. This Magician is different than any I have ever seen. A splendid, multi armed dancer pirouettes on a deadly cobra, blithely juggling her implements. Is she not aware of the danger of the poisonous snake, or is she just that confident in her abilities? The crowd around her is completely enraptured, some postulate as they bow before her, some cheering her on. One of her audience reaches for her with only stumps for arms, having sacrificed hers to some disease, or maybe worse? She is dressed in white, suggesting a purity of grace, and either way she dances on, because she must. She is brave, beautiful, and completely captivating.

I am particularly drawn to the fact that literally, she is dancing on a snake. I have a completely irrational, but very real, phobia of snakes. I cannot even look at pictures of them, even drawings, without breaking out into a cold sweat and shaking. The reptile house at the zoo is a trial for me, and let's not even talk about the time my little ones put a garter snake in my bed. I literally thought I was having a heart attack! Shooting pains in my arm and everything.

Did I draw this card today to remind me to face my fears head on? There are two winged angels looking on, and they seem to be as enraptured as the rest of the crowd. Are they her guardians? Will they rush forward to save her if she is bitten? I guess this is where faith gets tricky for me - it's the easiest thing in the world to proclaim faith, but possibly the hardest to live in it utterly. I haven't taken some of the leaps Spirit has called me to, danced on some of those snakes, because I have been afraid that I will be be bitten, and I do not trust fully that I will be protected. Limiting God is something I know to be foolish, but knowing something in one's head does not always help it translate to heart.

When I consider the Magician, I think of someone who has all the tools they need to succeed, but is working on the mastering of them. I think of someone who is learning to bring their conscious living into line with the divine plan. I think of someone who has the ability, and the responsibility, to bring about change, through the use of their own power, for good. The Magician brings about his desires not just by happenstance, or seeming coincidence, but he sets out with a plan and takes conscious action to bring it to fruition. To pull this card today reminds me that I CAN have everything I want and need, as long as it is good for me, as long as it is part of the wonderful plan that animates the Universe, but that it is not enough to just long for it. I have to make the choices that need to be made, heed the call of Spirit, and take ACTION. I don't have to know what the outcome is going to be, but pure intentions and a loving soul go far.

And I can trust that I have angels waiting in the wings to help me if it all proves too much.




These cards are from the Templar Tarot by Allen Chester and the Radiant Rider Waite by US Games.

Daily Draw - The Hermit

I want to show you one of the most beautiful cards I have ever seen. This one comes from the Templar Tarot, which I have fallen completely, utterly in love with. Here we see the Hermit, as an angel, wings torn asunder. One of the striking things to me about this deck is that while angels abound, they are not the bright, perfect angels we often see in imagery. These angels have been tested, and they are sometimes worse for the wear. Even so, I find them hauntingly beautiful and I love them deeply.

There is no way to know the gender of this angel, but I imagine she is me, wrapping herself up tight against the world, deep in retreat with her thoughts and her God. I am not surprised to see a message about isolation and withdrawal, because I am well aware that this is a season for that, for me. What I am endlessly pleased to note, however, is that this is my favorite card from this deck, and I scanned a picture of it only because I wanted an excuse to write about it, at some point. Then my cards obliged me by providing it for the card of the day. Beautiful synchronicity at work!

The LWB from the deck describes the angel figure as John the Baptist. "A cloaked and hidden figure stands in a grim land without comfort, yet the location is high and close to God... The Hermit is the teacher who points out truth in the chaos of life through reflection and introspection." I have been led by faith through some pretty tight places, and I don't doubt that there are more to come. Nonetheless, it is a comfort to know that wherever we go, we can find that quiet place within ourselves, and fill it with light and love and just bask there to recharge.

I see the Hermit as a reminder that God speaks softly, most often, so we have to have the ears to hear. I often get the Hermit when I need to spend time alone, which is maybe more often than some people, because that is where I find the most rest in healing, in solitude, in deep reflection, in prayer and meditation, all of which is terribly simple to say, simple to do, but not as easy as it sounds, if you know what I mean *wink*

We all know I have the attention span of a gnat when it comes to decks, but this one is really speaking to me. I think it does a good job of appealing to my Christian sensibilities while not excluding the other mysteries that exist in our wonderful, perplexing world. I love God, but I don't think that means only in church, and I don't think it means to be closed minded.

Happy Monday to you all! I will be posting a review of the mass market Touchstone Tarot very soon!





These images are from Templar Tarot by Allen Chester and Radiant Rider Waite by US Games.