Summer Solstice Reading 2014

This is my summer solstice spread for 2014. I shuffled the cards very well and laughed when I drew the Sun as the first card.

1. Sunrise - What is beginning in my life? - Sun
2. High noon - What is my greatest power right now? What should be my sharpest focus? - Dreamer Two (2 of Swords)
3. What is winding down in my life right now? - Justice
4. What is under the surface, at rest for the moment? - Dancer Three (3 of Cups)

Sunrise
I'm entering a new phase of optimism, success and achievement in my life. The figure in the Sun card beckons directly to the viewer to join hands and dance around the hill, which resembles Glastonbury Tor, topped by a tree framed by the sun, which is also the faery glyph. The little butterfly fluttering between us and the figure is a symbol of rebirth. It is also me, freshly emerged from my chrysalis, seeing everything with new eyes. Can you imagine what it would be like to be fresh born, looking around for the first time, feeling yourself moving for the first time, and the first sight you see is this scene? Nothing but joy and wonder would ever have been your portion. You emerge from your shell to go directly upward toward bliss. My, my.

 The sun in the card shows its great power, as it is the source of all life after all. The sidhe join hands and progress up the hill in a snake-like procession, toward the Source and the Tree of Life. This is kundalini rising, it is enlightenment of a kind. The upward spiral image is used to characterise kundalini and the awakening of bliss. Eion Finn refers to joy as an 'upward spiral.' We know that life itself is an upward spiral, we can see it in the form of the double helix of DNA. We see here in the card, the bottom of the card is somewhat murky in colour, though creatures of flight abound - birds, fluttering bugs and butterflies of various types. There are also some rounded objects in the two lower corners that look like geodes, a word that itself means 'earth-like'. The red-haired sidhe beckons me to join the creatures of the earth in a spiral dance into the greenness of life, upward, to return to source, to return to the True Self.

The card does not point to specific events necessarily, but an overall feeling of happiness and radiance. It is the start of my time to shine. Combined with the other cards, it suggests ways to gain in self-confidence and personal power, and that success and hope are on the rise. I can see many connections to my spiritual practice, my yoga practice, and the direction I hope to move my life.  All this is in the sunrise phase of the 'day'.

High Noon
At its zenith right now in my life is Dreamer Two, 2 of Swords, titled 'Half-Moon Truce'. The card shows a purply-bluey sky dominated by a huge circle, half black and half white, containing the ghostly face of a sidhe. It is ephemeral; there are wisps around the circle suggesting it may have suddenly appeared, and may be going into and out of focus. At the bottom of the card, the yellowing of the sky above two mountain peaks, in swirls of clouds, and hanging between earth and sky is a magpie, its wings outstretched. With its black and white colouring, the magpie represents duality in some ways. In folklore, the magpie can represent risk-taking, as its dual colours suggest both good and bad. Magpies are courageous, daredevil birds, they have amongst the most complicated of bird vocabularies, and they are notoriously attracted to shiny objects. All of these help us to see the sorts of things represented by the black and white moon - decisions, decisions. Do I dare to take a risk? Do I dare to speak my truth? Do I dare to go for the shiny objects?

Called 'Half-Moon Truce,' this card actually represent the pause between decisions. It is the moment of drawing breath between having an idea and speaking it into the world. We know that words make manifest. The moon is the silence of the heart, the mountains the resolution of the spirit, the magpie, then, would be the speaker of the magic. So all the swirling around the moon becomes the breath that gives life to the words.

In Dreamer Two, none of this has happened yet. It is the moment between initial foment and subsequent action. It is the balance that cannot last, it is like a rock that has been pushed up to the pointy top of a precipice, where it pauses, filled with potential energy, before either rolling back or teetering over and down the other side of the hill. It cannot just sit there forever. Natural laws will not allow it. Spiritually and mentally however, we can prolong this moment through hesitance to move either way. This is one reason why the woman in the traditional RWS image wears a blindfold and is seated in the non-land at the edge of water ('between the salt water and the sea strand', as Simon and Garfunkel call it, a non-place). One message of this card is that you cannot sit in this non-place forever. The moon in the card cannot stay half black and half white forever. The magpie cannot hover with outspread wings forever. Even the mountains will not endure forever!

So what is at its greatest power right now, what should be in sharpest focus in my life right now?  I am at the crossroads of possibility, the state between changed states -- and my greatest power is in being able to see with clarity, by looking inward, where I've come from and where I want to go. There are many decisions that must be made, but the card suggests that now I am at my greatest potential for making them.

Sunset 
The time for balance is over. The previous card just talked about how a balance act can't last forever. And then to represent what is on the wane, we see a card which represents a balancing act that lasts forever. In the sky of the card we see a sun and a moon side by side, the clouds around them forming the lemniscat of infinity. The green-haired sidhe, wearing a fetching red leotard, balances on the tips of the fingers of both hands on the handle of a glowing sword, which stands on its tippy-tip in the centre of a spiral, which is of course a faery glyph. The hair of the sidhe spills down from her head, forming the earth and the spiral, which actually looks like it could be the surface of a small pool of water. Here we have day and night, sun and moon, light and darkness, earth and sky, rock and water, and the flashing colours of green and red. The balancing sidhe can clearly maintain this pose forever. She herself is part of the landscape she balances on. It's all connected.

 However, the Justice card isn't about rock solid stability. Even this highly skilled, amazing strong sidhe cannot maintain such a posture like a marble statue. The balance requires continuous tiny adjustments to maintain the equilibrium to allow her to stay there in that position, which may vary in tiny degrees moment to moment, but which, overall, always appears the same. Look very close and you will see all the tiny tremours and miniscule movements of muscle that allow her to maintain the pose. (Just like in yoga.)

My time of 'continuous tiny adjustments' to maintain my status quo is now on the wane. It's on the way out. The time of tiny adjustments to keep everything looking the same is over! In conjunction with the previous Dreamer Two, the message is clear. Change is about to happen, based on decisions that I make. And because 'adjustment' is on the way out, making these decisions is something I can't avoid. Or even if I do avoid them, refuse to make them, change is going to happen. It's going to happen.

Night
Dancer Three or 3 of Cups is the card of celebrations, parties, festivities, community, lightness and joy. And this is dormant right now. Oh yes, I can certainly see that. We can safely say that I haven't felt like these water nymph type sidhe, frolicking together in the warm sea under the radiance of the full moon. I have felt isolated, agitated, and in many ways hopeless and directionless. Perhaps not hopeless, but certainly I have had no joy in community of any kind to speak of for many, many weeks. And in fact, this aspect of life is still dormant for me right now -- but there's one good thing about night. It doesn't last forever. If something is in the darkness of night, there is a clear implication that it will eventually see the light of day. If something is asleep, it will wake up.

And actually, I do have several social engagements lined up in the near future, and of course a big cause celebre is the end of this secondment, which is the main source of my feelings of isolation and unhappiness lately.

Advice
I decided after all this to draw one last card, asking for advice. How do I move more fully into the sun? How do I make the best of the Half-Moon Truce? What is the recommended action?

Make a wish. 

Ah. ... I can do that. Smiling.