Rise above

What is the most helpful thing I can do for myself today? 

Ancien TdM, Grimaud 1973

Hew down troubled thoughts and give them as an offering to your inner knowing. 

Thoughts that seek to destroy you should be met by the serene indifference of your inner knowing.

The 8 of Swords is all about troubled thoughts. The number 8 itself stand for 'ideas or thoughts of the mind', and Swords 'are the troubles that plague every man'. So the 8 of Swords is the perfect card to represent overthinking, particularly obsessive worries about the 'troubles that plague every man' -- thoughts about things like losing a source of income, having a catastrophic illness, or someone dropping dead, contemplating your own mortality, right down to smaller universal troubles like never being sure you're doing the right thing, or looking back on the past and wishing things had gone differently, all of these are 'troubles that plague every man'. They happen to everyone. The 8 of Swords represents worrying about these things. In fact, the Grimaud LWB says, 'This card has powerful undercurrents and possesses no meaning in the abstract sense. Heavy and overpowering, it marks despair because of the evil undercurrents that it attracts.' Wow. We can all justifiably worry about these things. But does it do us any good?

In this story of the cards, even though Death is facing the High Priestess, I don't think he's going for her. I think he's making obeisance to her. It looks like he's just chopped up worries from the 8 of Swords and is looking to her for approval. She certainly looks on at him with a benign and pleasant expression. They see eye to eye. So it could be that he's destroyed the overthinking and is turning it over to the higher mind, the aspect of self that exists above the ego. That's one way to read the story of the cards.

Another way to look at this draw is that in fact 8 of Swords and Death ARE working together -- the overwhelming thoughts and Death have teamed up to try to destroy you. But they find themselves squared up against a more powerful force than themselves -- inner knowing. In this story told by the cards, Death uses the 8 of Swords as his primary weapon, wreaks havoc in the mind, turns toward the High Priestess looking rather exhausted and hoping to go for her next, but nope. She is wise to his tricks. She looks mildly at him. She even looks somewhat amused by him. He can stand there panting and clutching his scythe all he likes. She knows that while she's locked eyes with him, he doesn't have the strength in his scrawny arm to raise it against her.  He'd just better hope she doesn't decide to lift her hand from her book against him! But she won't have to. And that's another way to read the story of these cards.

That is the most helpful thing I can do for myself today. Rise above troubled thoughts that believe they can destroy me. They can't. I cannot be destroyed -- not even by myself. No, not even if my thoughts have convinced me that they can. They can't. Not if I look them in the face and let them know I see them. They can't get the real 'I'. Not the higher me.

Summer Solstice Reading

A reading for Summer Solstice. I found this spread at a blog called Indigo Spirit Tarot. It seemed like a nice spread, so I thought I'd try it out here as my Summer Solstice reading. 

1

2 ............... 3

4 ..... SUN..... 5

6 ............... 7

8

1. Live with passion. Embrace the power of the Sun.

2. Upcoming possibilities. The door to success is opened by...

3. Time to play. Enjoy this gift.

4. Time to be serious.

5. Welcome advice.

6. Beware what lies in the shadows.

7. How to improve, now that you're aware. 

8. A burden lifted. Let it go.

I've chosen to read with Tarot Illuminati (Erik C Dunne, 2013) because -- what's more appropriate on Summer Solstice than a little illumination? 

1. Embrace the Sun - Princess of Swords. 'If the Princess of Swords is anything,' writes Kim Huggens in Complete Guide to Tarot Illuminati, 'she is firstly the power of invention and secondly of revolution.' 

2. Upcoming possibilities - Five of Swords. We often look at this card as indicating defeat, but there's no reason not to sometimes see ourselves as the ones having the upper hand. Kim Huggens supports this, writing, 'If the other cards around it are positive and supportive, it suggests the querent has a unique advantage in the situation and they need to make the most of it.' 

3. Enjoy this gift - Eight of Wands. This card suggests that whatever I start in the coming months will progress swiftly. I have the gift of fast movement and swift progress. 'Often this card indicates that the querent will be involved in a number of events that could be described as synchronicity, carrying them forward in a series of coincidences that they could never have expected,' Huggens writes. 

4. Time to be serious - Ace of Pentacles. Time to be serious about good hard graft, and reminds me to cultivate, process and make use of all my resources to be applied in each situation. I'm seeing it as saying don't get ahead of yourself. Be methodical. First things first. 

5. Welcome advice - The Empress. The Empress advises me to nurture myself, my life, my surroundings, my projects, and other people. She advises me to indulge my creative impulses, which, like childbirth, require sometimes painful effort to reap the rewards. 

6. Beware what lies in the shadows - 3 of Swords. Huggens makes an interesting point about this card. It is not the card of personal heartbreak, which is better reflected in 5 of Cups. Rather, this card represents the suffering of existence, 'the profound sadness felt when seeing the state of the world and the suffering of mankind,' as Huggens puts it. It represents existential angst, a feeling with which I am quite familiar. 

7. How to improve, now that you're aware - Death. I suppose few cards confront and dispel existential angst as effectively as the Death card. Acceptance. 

8. Let it go - Five of Pentacles.  'Worry is a self-destructive behaviour that perpetuates the cycle of lack and loss,' writes Huggens. 'It keeps us firmly in the past or in the future, and never in the present: we rarely worry about this moment, right now; we only ever worry about something that has happened in the past or what may or may not happen in the future. As such, worry does not allow us to take proper action in the present.' So clearly I need to let go of worry about lack, loss, deprivation, hardship, instability, etc. 

Interesting.

Don't pay the ferryman

Death - Daniloff Tarot 

I like this Death card from Daniloff Tarot. There's none of your uplifting 'transformation' messages here. This is full on DEATH. As in the end. No more life. Time's up. Something's come to a definite end. There is no more. Finito. Adios, muchachos. Popes, kings, mums with babes in arms. All toast. BUT...there's a boat in the background. Wonder where that goes?

Can you name the 5 rivers of Hades? These are the rivers that separate our world from the underworld:

Acheron - the river of woe

Cocytus - the river of lamentation

Lethe - the river of forgetfulness

Phlegethon - the river of fire

Styx - the river of hate; the river that the dead had to pass over to reach the underworld

All these rivers are said to converge in the middle of Hades in a kind of marsh also sometimes known as Styx. Hades was regarded as a misty and shadowlike abode of the dead. Not heaven, not hell. Just a shadow world. It could be that the boat is going there.

Or maybe it's going over another river, which takes its importance from the Bible in folk, gospel and spiritual music and poetry -- Jordan River, which symbolises the boundary between earthly life and the Promised Land. If so, the card focuses more on the spectre of Death, with the peace to follow only hinted at by the presence of the boat.

Or it could be another figurative boat ride, to 'the other shore' of enlightenment. We see this in the Heart Sutra, where 'prajnaparamita'  is sometimes translated as 'insight that brings us to the Other Shore', such as in Thich Nhat Hanh's translation.

So the card is not all bad news. There is cause for hope -- but not before the bitter taste of finality, in one form or another.

Death cheated out of the limelight again?

Life asked Death, 'Why do people love me but hate you?'

Death responded, 'Because you 
are a beautiful lie,  and I
 am a painful truth.'

When I bought Silver Witchcraft Tarot (LoScarabeo 2014), I got just the deck, not the book-and-deck set, because 1) it was cheaper, 2) I have very little storage space and 3) I would very seldom consult the book. A few of the cards in the deck are a bit of a puzzle as a result, but the Death card is easily interpreted, if slightly disappointing.

I say disappointing because I don't really like it when tarot decks are squeamish about the Death card. People always say that the Death card means transformation. And we see that here, with the empty shroud, and the larvae and butterfly representing metamorphosis (I like that, I use butterflies myself on this blog you may have noticed), and in the pillar of light which shows the route to heaven or enlightenment that this person took after death.

And that's the key -- transformation takes place AFTER Death. Death itself is not the manifestation of transformation.

Raise your candle high

This little light of mine
I'm gonna let it shine...
Let it shine, let it shine
I'm gonna let it shine
Oh yeah

If you've been following the blog this week, you've done a lot of work already. Good for you! We've used the Wicca Deck (Morningstar 2014) and the Old English Tarot (Kneen 1997) to consider taking action toward our goals and setting boundaries in our self-talk and relationships. This is HUGE work and not something that can be completed in one day! These are issues that we come back to again and again. Personal growth starts with our first breath and doesn't end until our last. That's the nature of the game.

The card is all about letting our little light shine. It's time we said good-bye to concealing or making little of our talents and ideas. That's what the Bible calls hiding our light under a bushel -- how long will a candle burn if a bushel basket is turned over it? Not only will the candle soon be snuffed out, but while it does burn, no one will be able to see the light, and so what purpose has it even served? The same is true of us. We all have talents and skills to offer to the world. Not to do so is to let ourselves go to waste. We are meant to show forth our talents and skills and ideas, to offer freely to the world all that we have to give it. Like the peacock in the card, we should not be afraid to offer our beauty and our radiance to the world.

Memento mori

In support of this oracle card, we've drawn the tarot card Death.  Usually we see this card as symbol of an ending, usually a painful ending, that ultimately leads to renewal. But there is another meaning to the Death card that is often overlooked: memento mori. It's a Latin phrase that means: 'Remember you will die.'

You've got a light inside you. You have so many beautiful talents and abilities, natural tendencies, propensity to help and love and nurture. Are you allowing those beautiful aspects of yourself shine out and bless the world? Why not? Why are you waiting? Each day you are less than your radiant beautiful self is one day gone from your life when you could have contributed to the happiness and joy and peace of others. Don't be shy! Don't be modest! Don't hold back! You can bask in your own warmth and radiance as well. The Death card reminds us -- we only get a finite number of days to enjoy this.

I just thought of a song. You know of course that the word 'Phildelphia' means 'Brotherly Love', right? Greek 'philia' means 'altruistic love' and 'adelphos' means 'brother, fellow, belonging to the same people, countryman'. Well, I just thought of the song 'Philadelphia Freedom' by Elton John --

Oh Philadelphia freedom, I love you, shine on me
Shine a light, shine a light
Shine a light, won't you shine a light
Philadelphia freedom - I love you , yes I do!

Hey, we are part of this big world of fellow human beings, and we all should be shining our lights for as long as they last, shine our lights for each other.

I remembered another one! Do you remember Melanie and a song called 'Lay Down (Candle in the Rain)'?

So raise your candles high!
Cause if you don't we could stay black against the night.
Oh, raise them higher again
Cause if you do we could stay dry against the rain! 

(Melanie says, 'I wasn't really a hippie. I was more of just an oddball.' LOL)

 How are you going to let your light shine today? It doesn't have to be something huge. Watch for it today. When you feel like saying or doing something but feel yourself holding back--don't hold back. Go on and shoot that ray of love out into the world.

White and yellow, green and red

This is one of the most beautiful Death cards in tarot, from Robin Wood Tarot by Robin Wood (Llewellyn, 1991). I just love it.

It's funny that I drew the Death card today,  because I don't feel that anything is coming to an end, but rather, as if I am waking up from a long blurry sleepwalk.

The figure in the red robe with the glorious white rose behind him seems to be pointing the way down the path for the little yellow butterfly. That's me, fresh and new and just hatched. The 'big bad' is behind me now, turns out he was my friend all along, and he is encouraging me as I make my fragile, fluttery way in the new direction I have chosen. Those sweet, moist little buttery-yellow wings, my little butterfly eyes blinking in the new sunlight, as I move off in the direction of my new day.

I wish I knew where to get my hands on a white rose to display in my home. A white rose and a yellow butterfly.

And now...the end is near...

Visconti-Sforza Golden Tarot

Today's the very last day at my old job. Yesterday was my last day to be there for both opening and closing...today is the last day indeed. I won't be back for 12 months, and who knows what could happen in 12 months. It's possible I won't be back at all.

So who else could I draw but Mr Death?

My current job draws to a close. The current moon phase draws to a close (it's a new moon tomorrow). Mercury retrograde draws to a close (today's the last day!). It is a day of endings in many ways.

I like this Death card. He's not so much a skeleton as a dried up corpse. Eventually he'll be a skeleton...He wears a bandage around his head like some sort of martial arts competitor, but most likely they are the bandages of his winding sheets, the rags he was wrapped in for burial. It could also be a blindfold that he has pushed back off his eyes (or that has just slid off). The striped item he holds in his left hand could be a serpent or it could be the remains of a long bow. The wand in his right hand could be the remnants of an arrow, or it could be a riding crop...I believe they are a bow and arrow: Dal Negro.

For further reading on Death imagery: Death Takes a Grisly Shape.

Interesting iconography, and I can see the significance of the card for me today. But Death is only card number 13 in the trump sequence -- there are many cards to follow. So onward and upward!

Deep Purple

Cachet Tarot 2003, 2013

Purple haze!
in my brain
lately things don't seem the same
actin' funny but I don't know why
'scuse me while I kiss the sky.

Purple haze!
all around
Don't know if I'm comin up or down
Am I happy or in misery
whatever it is put a spell on me...
           ~Jimi Hendrix

Or as the Brady Bunch put it --

When it's time to change, 
then it's time to change.
Don't fight the tide, 
come along for the ride, 
don't you see
When it's time to change,
you've got to rearrange
who you are into what you're gonna be.
Sha na na na, na na na na na, sha na na na na,
Sha na na na, na na na na na, sha na na na na!

Philosophers, both. :)

Just over the horizon

Today's card from the Anna K Tarot (Llewellyn 2013) is the Death card. He is an appealing chap, with his slinky black garment draped around his hips, abs looking all chiseled, his black hair scraggling down over his shoulders in an Aragorn/Daniel Day-Lewis in 'Last of the Mohicans'/Daryl from 'Walking Dead' kind of way. Big ebony wings gleaming behind him, his scythe resting on the ground, he beckons for us with his free hand. The path leads straight to the horizon, no turning to either side, certainly no turning back. You feel compelled to take his hand and continue on the path with him. He is a welcoming and gentle Death.

I'm not one of those readers who will tell you that Death never means a death. Because literal death is an inevitable part of our life experience, there's no reason to believe that it wouldn't be represented in tarot. However, there would have to be significant reasons indicated in surrounding cards before I would see literal death in the Death card. And I would be sure to emphasize that my seeing a literal death is not a prediction but an intuitive flash, not something definite. This because I don't believe that tarot foretells specific events, but rather, gives shadows of overall patterns, which are (mostly) conditional upon one's actions and upon one's beliefs about the situation.

 For the most part, though, Death is the step that leads to transformation. Now here's another area where I differ with some readers. Death itself is not transformation. Transformation is what happens AFTER the Death card. The Death card represents the end of something, which has to occur before the transformation into something new can happen. Death is change, endings, and it's hardly ever comfortable or easy. People say there's no such thing as a dignified death, and of course in many ways that's true. Physical death is undignified. Humiliating things happen to our bodies; we have no power over our bodies anymore. At any other time, this would be an embarrassment. So yeah, physical death is undignified, in that sense. It is uncomfortable. It is scary. Similarly, big changes to our lives can make us feel awkward, sometimes not in complete control, sometimes embarrassed or humiliated or just simply scared. But then when we get through that stage, the changes start to manifest, and the ordeal was worth it. That's the experience that is suggested by this appealing and welcoming Death. He will help you on this path to transformation, which is just over the horizon.