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| Book of Shadows, LS 2012 |
It today's card, we see a female figure meditating, her chakras alight. She sits in lotus pose, and in fact is sitting in a giant, 8-petaled lotus blossom. Sylphs are holding up some of the petals. It appears to me that the sylphs are actually opening up the lotus blossom rather than enclosing the female figure. As she meditates, she becomes more and more open to the universe. She floats in space, surrounded by darkness and stars, with the moon, symbol of the unconscious, emerging from behind a cloud above her in the background.
Like all the Air cards in this deck, the 8 of Air represents a form of divination. This card is is about visualization and traditional sitting meditation. I am unfamiliar with her hand mudra, index finger and thumb touching with other fingers curled in. If they were extended straight, and the thumb over the nail of forefinger, it would be gyan mudra. But this closed hand with pinching fingers I do not know. If anyone knows, please can you tell me the significance of this mudra?
This card represents the importance of formal sitting meditation in Wiccan/pagan practice. (The Book of Shadows Tarot is overtly targeted at witches, Wiccans and practitioners of earth-based Neopagan spirituality). In a reading, I would see it as either a recommendation to meditate in search of an answer, or to give thought to any messages or visions recently experienced in the meditation practice. The card seems to have nothing at all to do with a traditional reading of 8 of Swords, with its concepts of being trapped by one's own overthinking or worry, or one's perception that a current situation is inescapable.
The card reminds me to do my sitting meditation today, and pay careful attention to it :)
Interesting, I saw the Sylphs actually helping lift her up...
ReplyDeleteAnd perhaps this could be compared to the Eight of Swords reversed or answered - it's the solution to the normal Eight of Swords problem :)
That's true, they could be hauling her up. :) And I hadn't thought of the cards as being solutions to the problems in the traditional meaning. I shall be on the lookout for that possibility from now on.
ReplyDeleteIt's a beautiful card. I also see the sylphs as holding her up, supporting her or maybe carrying her away as she meditates. It makes this card very attractive to me right now.
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