The saddest cow in the history of cows

Book of Shadows, LoS 2012 

Wouldn't you know I would draw this card on the last day of our week with Book of Shadows Vol 1 by Barbara Moore. It's got to be my least favourite card and 'almost' a deal breaker for me.

The Earth suit of this deck is meant to embody the magic and wonders of the earthly realm, and the 9 of Earth is supposed to represent land animals. I cannot for the life of me figure out why 1) the deck creator chose domesticated animals to represent all land animals, 2) only cows and sheep stand in for domesticated animals, 3) the whole card is dominated by one huge cow, 4) this  cow has such a weird expression on her face; and 5) what the heck those gnomes are doing. But then to be honest, I don't even want to figure it out. I am so put off by this card that I don't even care what it means.

 But for the sake of continuity, let's have a go. Okay, 9 of Earth is the 9 of Pentacles. The 9 of Pentacles is a card that represents security on the physical, material level. The LWB says, 'The wisest thing to do is nothing but savour the moment and all its sensual pleasures.' Right, let me get this straight. A cow with a completely gormless expression on its face, standing in an empty field chewing its cud, watched at close range by a gaggle of crouching gnomes, is supposed to make me think of 'the moment and all its sensual pleasures.' Sorry. So not working for me. If I turned this card over, my first thought would be, 'Oy, wake up! Stop standing there in a stupor like some stupid cow!'

However, the savouring of sensual pleasures I am happy to indulge in. It's Friday, and tomorrow is my actual Saturday off! (I only get two a month). So bring on the choccies and the movies, time to settle in with the Hubby for some quality cuddles.

Have a great weekend, everyone. :D

Dreams and hands

Book of Shadows, LoS 2012 

The Book of Shadows Tarot Vol 1, Barbara Moore, gives me Ace of Air today. It's timely I should draw this card today, as my mind has been in complete overdrive for the last few days. I'm completely stressed out and the overthinking isn't helping me at all.

The card here, Ace of Air, shows a sylph orchestrating dreams for the sleeping figure. These dreams might be happy ones, or they might be nightmares. The card is ambiguous. Is he dreaming of his bright future--a lovely house, a new car, a fulfilling career--or is he having nightmares about his mortgage, car payments, and failing investment portfolio? Could be either, depends on the surrounding cards, the querent, and the question. The expressions on the faces of the sylph and the sleeper are giving nothing away.

Because this card speaks so deeply to me of my current state of mind, I thought I'd draw two more cards: Do this. Don't do this. These are 'solution' cards to the current rather intolerable situation I find in my mind. What should I do and what should I not do to ease my mind about this situation, and about my general unsettled feelings and disturbed sleep of late?

The Goddess Suit

Book of Shadows, LoS 2012

We have a goddess on our card of the day from Book of Shadows Tarot Vol 1.

Sarasvati is the Hindu goddess of the arts: music, writing, painting, sculpture performing arts such as dance, drama and so on. She is called the Goddess of the Word and the Goddess of Learning and is identified with culture, language, speech, communication, creativity, intellect, and inspiration. As Six of Water, she is depicted here surrounded by six undines, water elementals that serve in this deck as pips. The Water suit in Book of Shadows Vol 1 is the goddess suit, each card featuring a goddess, an aspect of divine feminine.

Where the Sea Kisses the Sky

Book of Shadows, LoS 2012

What a lovely card this is, the 2 of Earth from the Book of Shadows Tarot Vol 1 (Moore, LoScarabeo 2012).

The Earth suit in this deck corresponds with the Pentacles/Coins suit of a regular tarot, but there the resemblance more or less ends. The Earth suit is concerned with 'the magic of the natural world and our planet', according to the LWB. The 2 of Earth shows a pair of gnomes paddling around in the shallow rock pools near on the coast. The rocks around are dotted with starfish and other shelled creatures, and a blue hermit crab scuttles into the foreground. The lovely mottled lavenders and pinks of the setting sun reflect in the sea and the water.  The card shows a remarkable harmony between earth and water, sea and sky, landscape and living creatures. The LWB simply calls this card 'The Beach.'

Hubby and I love our yearly coastal walking holidays, and this card is very evocative to me of the beautiful scenery we have enjoyed on those visits to the coast. I like the holiday feel of the gnomes wading, exploring and just dipping their feet in the water. That's what we earth-dwelling folk do when we get to the sea. We dip our toes in, dig around, wonder at the strange critters we encounter, climb and clamber and gape at the vastness of the sea, the majesty of the sky, the antiquity of the (seemingly) everlasting rock. A visit to the beach can be a very spiritual experience.

Meditation

Book of Shadows, LS 2012

Today we have another Air card from the Book of Shadows Tarot Vol 1, Barbara Moore, LoScarabeo 2012. This is the 8 of Air, or 8 of Swords in a regular tarot deck. I think it's important to say that I see no resemblance between these cards and traditional tarot at all. It's my opinion that by rights, this deck ought to be classed as an oracle deck.

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.

Maybe God is Tryin' to Tell You Something

Book of Shadows, LS 2012

Today's card from the Book of Shadows Tarot: As Above, Barbara Moore (LoScarabeo 2012) is 4 of Air. In this deck, the Swords suit has its name changed to Air, and instead of swords, we see air elementals, or sylphs, used as pips. The Sword suit is usually associated with the element of Air, and with logic, thought, rationality, communication through the spoken word, the voice, and a sense of justice, fairness and right. In the Book of Shadows Tarot, the suit of Air is devoted to the practice of divination. Each pip card depicts a method of divination, 'the art or practice that seeks to discover hidden knowledge, usually by the interpretation of omens or by the aid of supernatural powers'. Some people shorten this definition to 'communication with the gods/universe'. Or even just 'God', if you like.

The 4 of Air in Book of Shadows Vol 1 depicts divination through noticing Omens, or signs. Wiccans and other pagans (and in fact many, many traditions both religious and cultural) find significance in omens. The 4 of Air card shows a man walking down an urban street at night, an eclipse of sorts in the sky above (itself often considered to be an omen), his way lit by a streetlamp (the streetlamp is a motif seen several times in this deck, actually). He has a scarf around his neck against the cold. Ahead of him, four sylphs are busy placing 'omens' for him to notice: a coin on the ground, a black cat, a crow and a four-leaf clover. These are all very well-known signs or omens, meant to represent all such omens, both those made famous through folklore and tradition, and those that perhaps only an individual attuned to such things would notice or find meaning in. The suggestion here is that such things are deliberately placed in our path in order to communicate with us. It is down to us to learn to take note of them.

Book of Shadows Vol 1, All Week

For the next 7 days, I will be drawing from the new LoScarabeo deck by Barbara Moore, Book of Shadows Vol. 1: As Above. I bought this as a deck-only, before I realized it was available as a box set with companion book. The book covers the two decks that the set will comprise: 'As Above (Vol. 1)' and 'So Below (Vol. 2)'. I've seen images of the 'So Below' deck, and I'm not sure I want it, anyway, so it works out that I didn't buy the set.

Another reason it's good that I didn't end up with the set is that I'm forced to do my own thinking about each of these cards. 'Each card is a portal that enables us to enter vast realms of knowledge and experience through meditation and study,' writes deck creator Barbara Moore, in the Little White Book. To me, this means I am meant to find my own way through this deck, just as a practitioner of Wicca or other pagan traditions would create their own 'Book of Shadows'. I have been looking through this deck quite a bit lately, but I haven't yet tried to use it for actual readings. So this week will be a good experiment.

Book of Shadows, Vo1 1
Barbara Moore 2012

Today's card is XVII Imbolc, or The Star. We see a female figure at winter sunrise, in a snowy setting. In the background there appear to be standing stones and some sort of large animal. To me it reminds me of a polar bear, but it is probably a ewe, this card being 'Imbolc'.  The red-haired maiden is crowned with 7 lit candles, robed in a white fur robe. (Too bad it isn't 8, which would better reflect the RWS version of the card). She has a fiery cauldron to her right out of which she dips liquid. She pours liquid from another vessel into a pool with her left hand. Her left foot is in the pool, her right knee on land. (This is the opposite to the hands and knees in the RWS Star card). Peeping out from behind her robe is the ubiquitous fluffy bunny that is included in virtually every card of this deck, whereas in the RWS card there is a bird in a tree.  Curiously, there does not appear to be a star in the sky in this 'Star' card.