The other shore

Touchstone Tarot, Kunati 2009

'Let the water wash over you
Wash it all over you
Swim to the ocean floor

So that we can begin again
Wash away all our sins
Crash to the other shore'

~ Madonna 'Swim' 
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Gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi swaha
(Gone, gone, all the way gone, gone all the way to the other side, hooray!) 
~'Prajnaparamita hridaya sutra' mantra 
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There's something about the idea of crossing over water. It appeals to the human spirit. The image pops up in pretty much every type of spirituality and faith. Christian Protestants sing about the far side banks of Jordan. And of course there is the beautiful ritual of baptism. Buddhists chant about going all way to the other side. Even Madonna had a song about a spiritual cleansing and fresh start, the words of which sprang instantly to my mind when I turned this card over this morning, even though I haven't thought about that song in 20 years. We like the idea of being cleansed by water, by leaving behind the old and pressing on to the new. 

We see this beloved motif represented in the tarot 6 of Swords. Most RWS-based tarot decks feature a boat of some sort, a ferryman, and usually a woman and child being ushered across water. The image speaks more deeply to us than words. We see the image of a crossing, and we just know what it means. 

I feel like I've been making a crossing lately, a crossing into a new phase of my life, a new way of living in the day to day, and it doesn't have as much to do with my daily activities as it does in the way I see the light, the way I breathe the air, and the way I think my thoughts.  I can feel it happening, like feeling the waves underneath the boat.