Who are the Sidhe?

Tarot of the Sidhe, Emily Carding 2010

This is the beginning of a One Deck Wonder with Tarot of the Sidhe, the Faeries' Oracle and reading of the book Faery Craft by Emily Carding. I embark on this journey with a kind of fragile uncertainty, because I am skeptical about faery on the one hand (my logical side) and wary of them on the other (my Christian upbringing--and general wariness of dealing with unknown entities). I don't know what they are. I don't know if they exist. I don't know if I want to know. But I want to know. It's like that. So I am also excited at the prospect.

I bought Tarot of the Sidhe because though at first the images actually disconcerted me, I could not escape their power to reach out of the cards and touch me, even when viewing images online. From the day I opened the deck I knew it was powerful and important. It's taken me three years to be ready to take a closer look. 

Who are the Sidhe?

This spread was created spontaneously whilst I was shuffling the Tarot of the Sidhe, the deck I will be using for the period of Beltane to Midsummer. I was wondering 'Who are the Sidhe?' I then asked seven questions to correspond to the seven points on the faery star, beginning with the center top point, and working around clockwise:

1. Who are the Sidhe? Maker Six (6 of Coins)
2. What is their relationship to humanity? The Lovers
3. What do they offer to humanity? Dancer Eight (8 of Cups)
4. What is their relationship to me? Dreamer Prince (Prince of Swords)
5. What do they offer to me? Dancer Queen (Queen of Cups)
6. What do they need from humanity? The High Priestess
7. What do they need from me? Dreamer King (King of Swords)

I have attempted to write the answers spontaneously whilst staring at the cards in question. I have not edited or changed the words that came to me, and I stopped typing when the words stopped coming into my mind.

1. Who are the Sidhe? The Sidhe have been here from the beginning. They are at the deepest part of all human mythos. They were there in the Garden of Eden. They are there in the sunshine and the growth of the good earth. They are there in the spirit of wonder and of temptation. The wonder of the power of the earth to bring forth food and abundance. The temptation to mischief or even evil as a result of that abundance. The Sidhe are always giving, often taking, always watching.

2. What is their relationship to humanity? They are our forgotten other self. They are the yearning that we can't explain. Like magnets we attract and repel each other. But we can't stop yearning for each other, humanity and the Sidhe. We're fatally attracted.

3. What do they offer to humanity? They can save us or they can pull us under. They offer us hope and despair. They will not show us the way. But they will go along the way with us. They will rejoice if we get it right, and they will spare not if we get it wrong. They do not easily give up hope on us. They are not invested in our outcome beyond their desire to see all beings achieve their utmost. They don't care if we ever know they're there, as long as we keep growing.

4. What is their relationship to me? They don't have a relationship with me. My mind is shielded by rational thought. My skepticism locks them out. My ears are and eyes are closed to them because of my constant whirling thoughts and seeking of reasonable answers, of proof.

5. What do they offer me? They offer me freedom from fear of the hidden depths. They offer me the ability to breathe under the water of my own inner world, which is their realm. It is the only place where I can ever meet them, where any of us can meet them. They offer me the power to delve there, unafraid, with eyes and ears open.

6. What do they need from humanity? They need a bridge, they need us to be willing to offer a bridge, not for them to cross, for they can move freely between the worlds, but for us to cross. They cannot offer the bridge, it is for us to make that effort. They need for us to release some of our dependence on the concrete, material world, to allow ourselves to fade into the mystic, for to become one with the elements of the material realm is to open ourselves to the spaces that lie beyond. This is the space inside the atoms and between the atoms, this is the ultimate reality of the material realm and our dependence is upon the illusion of the reality. When we enter the spaces, we enter the realm of the fae.

7. What do they need from me? May my sword of logic and reason become my third eye. May the thing that has shielded me from their realm be the very bringer of the crystal vision.  The Sidhe need me to be a warrior of words, a warrior with the sight.

Wow...I'm pretty gobsmacked. I honestly don't know where most of that came from. I really tried to close off my thinking mind and let words flow through me based on the images. The deck really seems to want to be read that way, at least for me. I mean, I know a deck doesn't want. Oh, you know what I mean.

Card of the Day: Dreamer Eight

Tarot of the Sidhe

Today's card is the equivalent of 8 of Swords. The image shows a figure, overwhelmed by the surrounding mirrors hanging from a spider's web. She's in the middle of the web. She herself has spun the web--a web of self-deception and overthinking. The mirrors represent how we see ourselves, the web is the elaborate 'story of us' that we tell ourselves. Perhaps the shadowy figure trying to break out of the mirror at the bottom of the card is the self attempting to break out of the mirrors of self-doubt and false images.

The card reminds me that I can quite easily trap myself in a web of self-defeating thought and beliefs. The message for me today is to stop thinking these kinds of thoughts. They are not skillful means -- they are just mean! 

Today's message: Don't be mean to yourself. Whenever you have a bad thought about yourself today, recognize it as the act of spinning a web to trap yourself in. Stop!

[And now that figure in the mirror at the bottom of the card does look to me like it's shouting STOP!]