Tripping Out On Tarot

I've recently been experimenting with my recreational drug of choice......tarot.

I willingly admit, I do like colourful decks, rich vibrant meaty decks, the exception being my Hidden Realm cards, but thats another story.

I rally like my Osho Zen deck but rarely share it, feeling it may be seen as too woo-woo for most client readings.  

I love it for readings about spiritual growth and for contemplation, but for the favourite 'I met this guy and.....' questions, it just didn't seem to work for me.

However having recently started experimenting I decided to start using it as an 'everyday' deck where possible.

A client recently wanted some insight into a matter of the heart and so I did the reading using my faithful Illumiati deck (love it or loathe it, it has so much to offer in readings). 

I suddenly had the desire to pull the corresponding cards from Osho Zen and overlay them with the Illuminati cards and all I can say is 'WOW'!

This added a whole new dimension to the reading, it gave insight on so much of this relationship it was unreal.

I do have to say though, at some points I felt like I was having some weird trippy hallucination.  So. Much. Colour.

It possibly didn't help that it was a 12 card spread (X2) making 24 very vivid cards staring me in the face, but it was so worth it.

Obviously the reading took longer than it should, but I can honestly say, it was so rewarding, the client was so happy, and quite surprised I had got so much detail form the reading.  I had apparently touched on issues that she felt were so deeply buried that she actually said '...it felt like you had climbed into my head and had seen my life through my eyes.'

That to me was enough to make me decide that I am going to start using this method more often.  Not, I may add, for the run of the mill 'love' readings, but where there seems to be an repeating or ongoing situation in a querent's life that they want really deep answers for.  

When a querent is willing to open themselves up to the inner work that needs doing, then I am willing to double the cards up and put that time in.

After all, its very nice to want to find out if you will meet the man of your dreams soon, but if you seem to be his worst nightmare, then surely having the tools to change that in yourself is the most powerful part of tarot.

Ladies and Gentlemen.....A Toast.

5 of Waters.  Osho Zen Tarot.

I love working with the Osho Zen Tarot.  It is a deck that helps guide me along on my spiritual path like a Rough Guide Handbook, pointing out the good places and not so good and takes you off the beaten track to those little areas not everyone has discovered.

I drew the 5 of Water (equivalent to Cups in RWS) in response to a question my daughter asked.  The gist of which, was, why did everything in her life keep turning out crappy.

Its sad, she is a beautiful young woman, with a gorgeous little boy.  She works hard at her job and at being a mum.  She's warm, friendly,funny, honest and touchingly niave, but she seems to keep hitting brick walls. 

As a child she was quiet and well behaved, but due to having to wear glasses form under the age of one, was bullied and ridiculed throughout her early school years.  As she got further through school, she had to wear braces on her teeth, so as kids do, she was yet again singled out and ridiculed.

However, as I kept telling her, my little 'ugly duckling' became the swan (she has a killer smile and te most beautiful eyes) but the damage was done, her self image was distorted and her confidence shattered.  It has taken many years to just begin to re-build what her school years took away.

So the 5 of Water Clinging to the Past seemed appropriate even though my daughter tells me she doesn't cling to the past, she says 'It's there, but filed away.'  So I began to tell her exactly how I see it.

She carries it around, frozen, part of her past that she doesn't want to deal with fully, so it is in the 'freezer compartment' of her memories.  Neatly stored in little parcels, every insult, every 'joke', every jibe, easily within reach on that special little shelf made for the ice cube trays.

The glass, behind the figure on the card, is waiting to be filled with all the good things, the experiences and events in life that we long to drink in.  Every time the promise of filling that glass comes up, like an automatic response, out come the ice cubes.   

Ice cubes made of shit, (not recommended but hey, its a metaphor) containing all the hard, cutting, hurtful things we have experienced in life, once dropped into that glass of hope and promise they aren't going to make the experience nice, it becomes tainted. 

It makes no difference how expensive the champagne, how good the quality of it, once that ice cube gets dropped in and starts to mix in, your champagne isn't going to taste good.  In fact it's going to taste of the same old shit that was held in the ice.

Maybe we need to check our 'freezer compartments' and acknowledge that there is some crap in there,  better still deal with one cube at a time, defrost it, check for any diamonds of clarity and pearls of wisdom we may have put in there by mistake that can be of some value,  and then flush the rest away, even ice has a use by date. 

We need to stop thinking our glasses need the ice cube, if you stop using ice, there is more room for champagne. 

Dealing with it one by one is possible, we all deserve to be able to raise our glasses up and savor the crisp, fresh taste of the delicious champagne that is our life. 

Warning! Detours Ahead.

As life seems to pull us away in directions we wouldn't choose to go, so it has been recently.  My commitments to family have meant investing time away from my own path and into helping others along theirs.

Thankfully though, I now have time to catch my breath and place some focus back into my life.

I do not begrudge one moment of stepping out of my journey and assisting where I am needed, I know that any time taken is accepted with gratitude. 

So after a period of absence I am happy to continue to where I am going.  Although I have no destination in mind, I am just enjoying the journey and sometime, like all long trips, a little stop off can be nice.

The card I pulled for today's blog inspiration was the Ace of Pentacles from Fairy Lights Tarot and elicits thoughts of boundless potential and unlimited resources, if you are prepared to do the work.

However, looking at the card again, I feel it fits so well with the past few weeks, having had to come away from my place of inner tranquility.  I have been walking along  a haphazard path, helping someone else realise their potential.  And now it leads me over the brink of the cliffs and down a path unseen while the promise of opportunity still shines over me.

So maybe that short detour wasn't in my plans, but it's been added to my map, almost as if I needed to have the company, the change of landscape and most of all, the challenge.  So maybe thats where my opportunity lies.

Right Here, Right Now

Fairy Lights Tarot by Lucia Mattioli

I love my tarot cards, each and every one.  Today I asked my deck to show me the card for this post as I was a bit lost on what to write (this is what happens when you take time away, it's difficult to get back into your stride).

Well my beloved and slightly bedraggled Fairy Lights Tarot was up for the quest.  It gave my the 6 of Wands.

Wow, it really knew what it wanted me to blog about, and I say thank you to it.

I've been away from  my blog for a while as I explained in my previous post, lost in books.  I just needed to get some stillness in my life, as things were starting to snowball a bit with family and health.  I felt I was having to be in two places at once and between family commitments and tarot reading commitments I was finding my time was very much spoken for.  

Modern living (not that I'm complaining) seems so good at finding ways to take that precious spare time and just zap it.  It starts with the checking of emails, then a quick look at my favourite websites.  Before you know it I've been lost in cyber world for over an hour.

T.V has the same effect.  Stopping us in our tracks and numbing the tick of the clock. Thus I decided, I needed to reclaim my precious time.  I no longer have a television.  I have written out a list of books that I have been wanting to read and made a specific order in which I am going to read them.

The biggest change though is that I am actively meditating twice every day, something that 'I didn't have time for' before.  My meditations were always crammed in to a spare 10 minutes whenever I could remember, and were never fulfilling. 

So the last month has been a bit of a retreat for me and the 6 of Wands here shows a woman, so still that she has taken root to the earth, she is connected and growing as part of it.  As she is transforming, becoming one with everything around her, all other things continue to go about their business.  She stands, present in the moment, yet still in her self.  

This is what the last month has been for me.  removing myself from the stuff that has been eating away my time, the stuff that in the true reality if things is not what is truly important.  It will pass, it will be gone from existence yet what remains is the now.  The calm peaceful stillness of now.  And I am enjoying life so much more.

  

Shusssssssh!

I feel like a neglectful momma, my absence as been duly noted and dealt with.

I sort of got lost in my backlog of 'books I really had to buy as I really want to read them'.  I have a habit of going through my wish list and buying books, that although may look good on my bookshelf, were actually bought to read.  So I have had a literary-fest and have been losing myself in my books.

It is surprising to find that books I have on my Amazon wish list are actually sitting on my shelf at home (I know, I am a hoarder).  This tells me I have a problem and really need to get my bookshelves organised and possibly data based.  
I admit to having two 6 foot high bookcases, with every shelf at least two books deep of books that I own.  

My taste in reading is so varied that I could probably use section makers like Waterstones do.  Alas I just pile them wherever I happen to find a space and so have a jumble of titles, authors and subjects as varied as Oscar Wilde right through to Darren Shan.  I have Idiot's guides through to Richard Dawkins, Terry Pratchett to HH The Dalai Lama.  

I hate to admit that I also have boxes of books in my loft, under my bed and in my spare room.  But I just cannot bare to get rid of books.  Some I must admit I have passed on to charity shops, jumble sales, friends and family, but only the books I have little interest in or have not enjoyed.  I still have my collection of Enid Blyton's Famous Five books somewhere.  

So I have been in hibernation with my books, and as the days get warmer I will be found in my garden with a book in my hand and my dogs by my side and a cup of capuccino. 

By this time next year I may have even got through one shelf of books if I am lucky enough to have the time, as there is always tarot to distract me from my wordy friends......  Oh, and don't get me started about my Kindle.

Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible (well, when I finish the chapter I'm reading).

The Birds, The Bees and The Ace of Wands.

Legacy of the Divine Tarot bu Ciro Marchetti

I love to think 'outside the box' and I know that sometimes when I come up with ideas/thoughts, I tend to get that blank look from my nearest and dearest.  I can almost read the thoughts of 'what is she on?' when I start rambling. 

This is why I love tarot.  There are no right or wrong ways of what a reader sees in a card, it is also why I like to have several decks that are varied in their imagery. In every deck there is something different to glean from each artists interpretation.

In Legacy of the Divine's Ace of Wands I see the classic definition of the creative spark, the fiery passion.  And as I did my initial study of the deck, making notes on what the imagery could symbolise, I wrote down words that images reminded me of.  Reviewing it later I was surprised that I had written 'ovum' for the sphere at the head of the wand.

I decided to go further with this and then it struck me........passion and creativity.  What do we create in passion?

Yes you guessed, we're going to talk about the birds and the bees in symbolic terms (I don't want to end up deemed an 18+ blog), but bear with me.  After all it's nature, it's how we got here in the first place.

Wands, as we know are masculine/yang energy.  The wand itself is designed to look slightly phallic.  At the top of the wand is this beautiful orb which in my journal I had noted as the ovum, full of potential, glowing with energy. 

Take a look at the periphery of this orb, the glowing gems, as if attempting to penetrate the orbs surface...... now do you see where I am going with this.

The explosion of fire at the base of the wand, the dragons rising upwards from those flames, the passions rising, the climax.

Even the cliff faces at the sides of the cards have some connotation in the interpretation.  Cliffs are formed from rock, made from the earth.  Earth as we know in tarot is feminine/yin energy, and all this wand/orb/dragon action is taking place within this valley between the cliffs.

So forgive me if it is just my naughty mind, but I see a bit of baby making gong on here. So if this card showed up with The Empress, a Page, 3 of Cups or 9 of Coins, I'll be getting my knitting needles and bootee patterns out.   

  

A Prison of Our Own Making

8 of Swords, Rider Waite Smith.

Blindfolded, hands bound and surrounded by steely blades.

What is the situation that has this lady scared and unable or unwilling to move?  Is it a situation she has put herself in?  Has something else put her there?

Could it be she's a victim of bullying or verbal abuse?  Worn down by the constant cruel words, that she comes to believe they hold truth.  Trapped in a way of thinking that she no longer is able to see or function with true clarity.  What other people think and say to us has a massive impact on our psyche.  Tell a child of 4 or 5 years old that they are ugly often enough and that child grows into an adult with serious issues around their physical appearance.  Tell a person frequently that they are useless and they give up trying to reach for their dreams.  Words cause wounds, I dislike that adage I was taught when I was young, that sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.  Sticks and stones cause bruising, possibly even a fracture, it is a visible wound, it heals.  Words cut to the core, the wounds are invisible but the scars are big.  Victims of abuse and bullying are not allowed to think there is a safe haven for them if they ever work their way out of the situation.  So there she stands back turned and eyes blinded to the security of the castle at the top of the cliff. 

Is she the same victim but is trying to analyse the situation and feels the need to close herself off to the emotions it evokes and stopping herself doing anything impulsive or making any rash moves?  I think we all try to rationalise our  less pleasant situations.  We try to work out if there is any logic in them.  We try and work a way out but first we need to stop and think clearly without external interference or allowing our emotions choose our next move.  This lady could follow the small flow of water at her feet to find a safe exit, but would that mean she is being guided by emotion and not logic?

Could this lady be someone with an eating disorder?  Punishing herself with her own harsh thoughts?  An inability to see the truth of her situation?  Eyes blindfolded by the illness, she does not see things as they truly are, her skewed thinking is caging her in, making her a prisoner of this cruel condition's poisonous thoughts?

The castle up on the cliff is the 'goal'.  If I can lose 1 pound today/ 8 pounds this week, then  I will be happier/ perfect/ prettier/more clever/popular and I can live happily ever after.  However those swords are pretty well placed and bloody sharp.  It then becomes easier to stay put, not able to see which to turn to reach your castle.

Is she an alcoholic/drug addict even some one in the darkest stages of depression?

When I see the figure 8, I see it as the lemniscate the infinity symbol, and as the lemniscate it depicts a cycle, the ebb and flow.  Whatever this lady's situation, it is a vicious cycle, there appears no way out, and she remains there,  seemingly quite unconcerned.  It may be more comfortable to stay put and not move away for fear of making the wrong move.  In the words of Albus Dumbledore, 'to choose what is right, or to choose what is easy'.

At the crux of the card is the uncomfortable feeling it gives the onlooker. You feel like shouting instructions to the lady guiding her by telling which way to turn to move safely out of her predicament.  But this is not what is needed.  The woman needs to do this on her own.  She will not find the solution from someone else's intervention, as hard and as uncomfortable that may make us feel.  Like I said before this is a cycle, it continues on and on until the lady herself (the central issue) works out for herself whether to shake her hands from their bindings, uncovers her eyes and finds her safe path up to the safety of the castle. 

She does not need 'rescuing'.  She needs to rescue herself.