Born to Hang Glide, Baby

It's the first day of spring, a day when the sun is overhead at the equator, and the hours of daylight and darkness are equal. What a tippy-toppy day it is. Each day since Winter Solstice, the days have grown gradually longer and longer, until at last they have caught up with the hours of night, and from today, they begin to pull ahead. The race is on to Summer Solstice. :) 

The solstices and equinoxes have always been more important to me in my practice than the so-called 'Greater Sabbats'. I find them profound, beautiful and humbling. The movement of the earth around the sun, or sun around the earth, from the point of view of the ancients, certainly makes one think of a bigger picture. Whereas the Greater Sabbats focus on the cycles of the earth, the Lesser Sabbats seem, to me, to focus on the cycles of the cosmos. For me, the names are backward! (Silly old Gerald Gardner). 

The Spring Equinox is the tipping point, the top of the hill where we can pause and look back at where we've come from, and then look forward to where we're headed. But instead of heading downhill, we're launching off into the big blue -- spiritual hang gliding! There's a lovely Spring Equinox spread recently posted at Aeclectic Tarot by MaineGirl177 which I've adapted here:

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1. Where I've come from: the darkness of winter.

2. What has been resolved? What can I now release?

3. What is finding balance within me now?

4. What new growth will the increasing light reveal between now and Summer Solstice?

I've arranged the cards in an upward progression. Card 3 is the top of the hill. Cards 1-2 are the view from the top looking down. And Card 4 is the view at the top of the hill, looking up and out, squinting into the sunny horizon. Do you dare to launch yourself into it?

Thoth, Crowley-Harris

I have drawn The Aeon, The Priestess, 8 of Cups, and Princess of Disks. I have come out of a darkness during which I have struggled with questions, not necessarily of Judgement, because the Thoth Tarot does not use that interpretation, but of the transition between eras in my life. I can see that happening. There are many issues I have confronted through the dark months of winter. And many issues I have turned away from confronting. All of them have to do with the hand over of one era to a new one. I won't go into more specific detail than that here.

The thing I'm leaving behind is The Priestess--and I find this profound, given my new understanding of the Priestess of being the only card in the deck with the stamina to cross the Abyss. I do believe that the worst is over in some of the struggles I've faced lately. Or rather, I have crossed a long fallow period of inactivity and/or avoidance, a kind of wasteland of inaction. That would seem to be behind me now.

This leads right to the next card, which answers the question 'What is finding balance within me now?' Answer: 8 of Cups. Indolence. The Golden Dawn title for this card is 'Lord of Abandoned Success.' Crowley has this to say about it: 'This card represents a party for which all preparations have been made; but the host has forgotten to invite the guests; or the caterers have not delivered the good cheer. There is this difference though, that it is in some way or other the host's own fault'. In so many areas of my life I have been in self-imposed stasis, complete indolence. It's like I've been taking a break from reality almost! And now that is finding a balance in me. With the coming of the light, some of those dark corners of my brain begin to wake up and start to function again. That will be a relief! (And a common pattern for me. I do better in the lighter months).

My area of new growth is Princess of Disks, 'the Malkuth of Malkuths'. She is on the brink of transformation--she represents transformation itself. She is illuminated from below, and so she actually sits, not at the bottom of the Tree of Life, but at the top. In fact, the diamond at the bottom of her staff could be the Kether itself. DuQuette calls her 'the last of the tarot cards', meaning she is the ultimate of the deck. Crowley sees her as the culmination of the Great Work, the work of uniting the self to the Universe. Paul Hughes Barlow says that this card represents a step up, that you're never the same again when this card comes along. Well, mercy me! I guess this means I will be doing some spiritual hang gliding!! 

I hope you give this spread a try and let me know your results.