Love is the gardener

What a nice card for a groggy Monday morning. It's the time of year when the sun is streaming through the windows by 4.30 in the morning, and the two crows who live outside my flat block, who I usually enjoy watching out the window, are crowing their fool heads off. SHUT UP!

Anyway, it's Monday morning, I'm up now, and I've drawn the Star for today. I'm an Aquarius and the Star is my birth card. Water bearer, as you can see. In tarot tradition, the naked woman kneels on one knee on the land, one foot on the water, and pours water from two vessels, one onto the land and one onto the water. In most decks, the star above her has eight or 16 points. In this deck, it is a five-pointed star. The two vessels are featured in the upper left and right corners of the borders as well.

There are many flowers on this card. The white lilies represent purity. I also see daisies as representing purity, as they are a white petals surrounding a golden centre. The companion book suggests they represent simplicity. There are also white and red roses here, representing passion and purity. I see some 5-petaled purple flowers which look to me like violets, symbol of modesty and maidenhood. Butterflies fly around the female figure, representing transformation and rebirth. There are some small golden flowers that might be marigolds, a Hindu symbol of good triumphing over evil (it assumes an important role in festival of Vijayadashami, when Lord Rama prevailed over Ravana).

Today's yoga practice was Real Yoga for Real People, featuring teacher Mark Whitwell. I love what he teaches about yoga, which is very different from what many yoga teachers do. He maintains that yoga must be adapted to the person, not the other way around. Yoga is not about asana (postures or poses). It is not about physical gymnastics -- but more importantly, it is not about spiritual gymnastics, either. Let's let him say it:

For me the Star is about enlightenment, spiritual awakening. It's about hope, as most contemporary readers interpret it. It can also be about aspiration, and where there is aspiration, there can be disillusionment and pain. The Star, in that way, is a good card to represent yoga, its beauty (acknowledging oneness and wholeness) and its shadow (arrogance, haughtiness, impotence). The yoga practice is simple but astonishingly profound. We have to work so hard to accept that we don't have to work hard. We have to try so hard to see that we don't need to try hard. People are funny like that.

The Pearls of Wisdom companion book calls this card a card of 'great love, holding the impersonal forces of the Universe in balance. The Star is Aquarian love kindled by hope for humankind.'

If the Universe is the garden of existence, love is the gardener.