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?

The safe choice?

Watch the clip from Jim Carrey's commencement speech to Maharishi University of Management Class of 2014. It's such an important lesson for us all, the lesson he learned by observing his father:

You can take the path that seems like the safe path, but there is no guarantee of safety there. As Jim Carrey puts it so well, 'You can fail at what you DON'T want...so you might as well take a chance on doing what you love.' 

My bulletin board

And Here's the Tale as Told by Gaian Tarot

The world's a scary place. 

So you do the 'right thing' - take the safe and responsible option.

But guess what -- you can't keep lightning from striking the oak tree by stockpiling a few acorns! (You don't even like acorns, but they seemed like a safe bet...)

Well, surprise! All your 'safety' goes up in smoke. You didn't think this could happen. You thought karma would accept the 'noble sacrifice' of your dreams and give you security as a reward. Wrong.

You might as well have listened to your own heart, although it is scarier than gathering acorns.

And dared to dance a little too close to the fire, out in the open, where everyone could see you. Yes, you might get burned. 

But you might also find real joy. 

It's not too late. It's never too late. What have you got to lose that you couldn't lose anyway? 

Waiting for time

Bonefire Tarot

Now this is a weird image from Bonefire Tarot, the 2 of Swords. Blindfolded with a red and white polka-dotted cloth, a lass wearing only a top with puffed green sleeves sits on the nose of a giant, red-eyed ram or goat's head with a ring in its nose. It exhales bilious pink smoke. She clutches between her knees a giant hour glass, which shows a heart at the top and purple sand falling through, which becomes a mountain surrounded by pink clouds against a yellow sky. Her arms embrace the top half of the hour glass, crossed at the forearm, and in each hand she holds a dagger -- but she can't really be holding them, because her hand is turned at an impossible angle to do so. Her hair blows out into the watery sky, more pink fog hanging against a glowing crescent moon.

I told you it was a weird image.

The LWB accompanying this deck suggests 'a decision to be made, no further information required, head over heart, the answer is known, finding your own truth.'

Those sound pretty innocuous, but you just can't argue with the sinister overtones of that ram or goat or whatever the heck it is. And the hourglass suggesting that time is running out. This is not just 'a decision to be made', this would appear to be something of quite vital importance, something to do with morality or ethics or something like that. This is a decision with serious ramifications. ('Ram'- ifications. Oh boy. This is what happens when I drink real tea instead of decaf coffee).

To be honest I haven't a clue what this card could mean for my day today. Maybe it's just me being in a holding pattern with my current job, knowing that I am working out my notice period.

Dance without a net upon the wire

Spiral Tarot, 1997

She walks a tightrope in her stockinged feet, a slender rope that runs parallel along the rocky edge of a waterfall. Her thin dress blows lightly about her legs. She holds a heavy sword in each hand, crossed by the wrist at chest level. She clutches her arms to her chest to balance the swords, their lengths rising above each of her two shoulders and pointing upward into the starry night sky. She is blindfolded. Her chin juts forward as she makes use of her remaining senses to guide her. She has gone deep within in order to maintain her balance and achieve this task of getting to the other side. Her foot reaches out toe first to take her next step. There is the tension of concentration in the image, but also a sort of calm. Her shoulders are down. Her face is smooth. Her arms and hands are solid and sure, braced against her upright body. She is going to make it.

Rachel Pollack suggests in Tarot Wisdom that the figure in the Two of Swords appears to be engaged in a kind of meditation or martial art, and I agree with that. Sometimes to get to the truth of a matter, you have to put on a blindfold. To see things from a new angle, you have to shut out the things that seem most obvious, and 'feel' for subtler truths. Shutting out what everyone else 'sees' can be a challenging experience, you can feel like you've put yourself in a dangerous position and that there's no one to help. But really, at these times, no one can help but you. Any input from an outside source at this particular moment in the life of the woman in this card would upset all her balance and send her teetering off the wire. True, we can't see what's below her -- could be a churning abyss, could be an 18 inch drop to a nice smooth rock for her to stand on. But she doesn't want to drop, she wants to get across on that wire, and she can do it if she keeps to her purpose and does not allow any distractions.

Today may my resolve remain strong in the face of any attempted distractions, even if they're meant to be helpful.

Shadow of the moon

Wild Unknown Tarot, 2013

The Two of Swords from Wild Unknown Tarot features a total eclipse of the sun. I believe this points to an aspect of the Two of Swords that is sometimes overlooked: an equilibrium or a stalemate, a reprieve, that cannot last.

Quite often, particularly with RWS decks, we tend to see Two of Swords as fooling oneself or blindfolding oneself to the truth, or refusing to take sides on an issue or to take a stand. We can even see the card as a truce of sorts, in decks like Osho Zen and some others. But many times we forget to think about how even if things are in a holding pattern right now, this situation absolutely cannot continue. The tipping point will be reached.

The Wild Unknown Tarot points out just how soon that is likely to happen. A total eclipse of the sun, is total, that's for sure. But it doesn't last long. An actual solar eclipse can last anywhere from a few seconds to around 7 minutes. That's it. Even in comparison to the short human lifespan, that's pretty darn quick. From the point of view of eternity, well, it's nothing at all.

The card reminds us that things are always changing--always, always. Things cannot stay the same forever. The question is, are you going to stand by and let them change and then just react to what happens, or are you going to be an active participant in the process? The blindfold has to come off at some point -- you can't hide in the shadow of the moon forever.

Avoidance

The Tarot Illuminati (Dunne and Huggens, LoScarabeo 2013) offers us 2 of Swords today. The first thing I think when I see this card this morning is 'No'. This woman is saying No to everything. No, I will not see, No, I will not feel, No I refuse to even hear. No, no, no to all of it. She turns her back to the sea, like someone who backs themselves into a corner for protection. Then she raises her swords over her heart and allows the roar of the sea to deafen her while the blindfold shuts out everything else.

I wonder what she thinks she's accomplishing. She is not accomplishing anything. She's not protecting anything, except whatever illusions and self-deceptions she's concocted in her own mind. Still, she would clearly rather be in there than out here, where life is real and has to be dealt with.

Of course, she can't maintain this stasis forever. A storm could blow up and wash her away, marauders could rob her or carry her off, or at the very least she's going to get tired, pass out and fall out of her chair. She could drown. How stupid she's being. How ridiculous to think she can protect herself by withdrawing in this way.

Are you withdrawing from something that you know you're going to have to face at some point? When will you take your blindfold off and drop your swords? Will you wait until the waves wash you out to sea and just drown? Or will you get up and confront what needs confronting?

Night and Day

Trying to shuffle this morning, a card came flying out of the deck and fluttered to the floor. I call those 'jumpers', and sometimes I pick them up and put them back in the deck with no thought, other times they strike me as calling attention to themselves and I set them aside and proceed, taking them into account at the end of the reading, and sometimes they strike me as the 'true' answer to the query and I look at just the jumper and forego drawing any others.

Today I decided to stick with the jumper as my card of the day, Dreamer Two from Tarot of the Sidhe.

Musings on the Celtic Tarot: Swords

Suit of Swords--Celtic Tarot, Davis  

The first thing I notice about this suit is the arcing of lightning or electricity and its various manifestations throughout. You can see the first stirrings of it on the tip of the sword in the Ace, then the big spark jumping between sword tips in the Two. It's gone in the Three, but beginning to whirl up again behind the swords in the Four, goes a little crazy in the Five, shoots a clear steady beam in the Six, becomes a full on power storm in the Seven, then is pretty much gone in Eight, Nine and Ten. The background of those cards also appears a deeper red. Why? Looking closer, you can see that there is a ball of energy in Eight, a few glimmering pinpoints in Nine, and a few even smaller ones in Ten. Curious...what could it mean?

Choices

Today I am drawing a card from the Sol Invictus Tarot, a lovely set that uses multicultural gods, myths, legends, and even real historical figures to represent the tarot through images of the Divine Masculine.

My card today is Two of Swords, Papa Legba. Two of Swords often depicts a blindfolded figure holding crossed swords in front of the chest, or someone sitting at a crossroads, or both! The card is associated with facing choices, having a decision to make, and usually a decision that once you've made it, it's difficult to turn back and retrace your steps for a startover--might even be impossible. You can see in the card, Papa Legba holds two keys to the gate and seems to be keeping watch or standing guard over the crossroads. You've got to pick one or the other, and the gate implies no simple way of turning back once you make your choice.

Papa Legba is a figure in the New Orleans voodoo tradition, who is seen as a keeper of the gateway between the worlds, who can remove obstacles and provide opportunities. What an interesting and appropriate figure for the Two of Swords.

I am facing lots of choices in my life right now, but today in particular I will need to use powers of discernment and decision-making, because we are going to test drive a few cars. And of course it is the case that buying a car is a decision that is not easily backtracked from! Once you've bought it, it's your baby, you can't just give it back. The card also suggests wariness in today's thinking...Papa Legba can be a trickster, so I must be wary of having my head turned by pretty colours, extra features, or the talk of sales people.

Papa Legba, open the way,
that we may see the truth
about the cars we test drive today! :)

It's now 6.42 pm. It was certainly a long day. We test drove 4 cars today. The first place we went was a Honda dealership, where the salesperson was lovely, low key and a pleasure to work with. The atmosphere was completely different in the Volkswagen place we visited in the afternoon, where we were served by a young salesperson who gave us the most high-pressure, most deeply flawed sales pitch in the history of car buying. It was a surreal experience during which he tried to demonstrate that a year's petrol if you drive 13,000 miles a year would cost £18,000. Things were pretty much down hill from there. The only good thing about the VW experience was we found that we loved driving both the Golf and the Polo. But I don't think we'll be going back to that particular VW dealership, even if we decide to buy a VW. Thank you, Papa Legba, for the warning and the discernment!