Slow dancing with Jareth

I can't help myself, these images remind me of films and songs and poems. This one reminds me of David Bowie's character, Jareth, the Goblin King in the film 'Labryinth'. It makes sense, though, as Brian Froud created the conceptual designs for the film.

This Magician reminds me very much of tarot Magicians, because he has tools of the trade all around him - a wand, a crystal ball, a candle, tarot cards flying all about, and goblins, faeries, unicorns and all manner of mischief and magic represented. He looks kind of dangerous, though. He's definitely a trickster and tempter, you can see that plainly.

In the film 'Labyrinth', the Goblin King Jareth falls in love with the young girl Sarah, because she has become obsessed with him in her fantasies. She has practically created him. I see an interesting message in this card about the will, about 'magic'. You create magic, and it creates you. You have to make sure the boundaries don't get blurred.

'Everything that you wanted, I have done,' Jareth says to Sarah. 'You asked me to take the child and I took it. You cowered before me and I was frightening. I have reordered time, I have turned the world upside down, I have done it all for you! I am exhausted from living up to your expectations of me. Isn't that generous? I ask for so little, just let me rule you and you can have everything you want. Just fear me - love me - do as I say, and I will be your slave.'

Now I can see how someone in trousers like Bowie's with shoulders that wide could be a bit mesmerizing. You might be inclined to give in! But instead, Sarah says, 'My will is as strong as yours and my kingdom as great. You have no power over me,' and escapes.

What has she escaped from? I think we have to be careful that our goals or aspirations, our dreams and our daydreams, don't grow into monsters that rule over us. Our desires can cast a glamour over us and make us slaves to them. We have to remember that we created them, we control them. We drive them, they don't drive us. And we can change our minds at any time. 'You've come this far you can't turn back' is not a true statement. You can turn any time you like. You can do anything you want. You are the pilot of this ship!

There's another aspect - if your dreams and goals become nothing but daydreams, they threaten to trap you in a bubble of inaction. That's no good, and reminds me of Rachel Pollack's tremendously wise comment on the Magician card - 'Unless we make something of our potentials, they do not really exist.'

Does that make sense? I think it does. But Jareth sure looks hot in those kinky little boots. I have to admit in 1986, I was so into Jareth. I haven't thought about this film in years...I'm still into Jareth. Let's slow dance with him...

But remember, if all you ever do is slow dance with your dreams inside your own head -- where will that ever lead you? Not very far.

What was that noise?

 “Hope” is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -

And sore must be the storm -

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -

And on the strangest Sea -

Yet - never - in Extremity,

It asked a crumb - of me.

~ Emily Dickinson 

When does 'Hope' sing most sweetly? In the gale and storm, in the chillest land, and 
on the strangest sea. Hope will not abandon you. You just have to listen for it. 

Another 'prick up your ears' message, then. Listen to the tune without the words. 

Reality check

Heart of Faeries, Froud 2010 

It's great to be a 'Soul Survivor' like yesterday's card, but you can't always go roaring through your life that you 'might have been QUEEN!' Sometimes survival is about knowing when to keep quiet and listen. Nobody understands that better than the animals featured on this card from Brian Froud's Heart of Faeries Oracle. In the background, I see what looks like a horse's eye, and a hare with long ears, and at the top, I see antlers. These are all prey animals, and I assume the big-eyed faerie gazing at us from the card represent them and their qualities. They must be intensely alert at all times, aware of their surroundings from all sides, ready to take action for self-preservation. This, too, is an important part of being a soul survivor. You have to know when to prick up your ears.

Today is a day to be still and listen. To be closely attuned to every sensory perception in your present moment. Present moment living can take you out of anxiety. Here's an exercise I just learned. Whenever you catch yourself caught up in an anxious thought, do NOT start to argue with it, telling yourself to stop thinking about it. Instead, say, 'Here is my anxiety,' and then STAND UP, take a step to one side, drop your shoulders, loosen your jaws and relax your hands, pat yourself on the legs or bum, and then take in your surroundings using your five senses - what do you hear happening around you? What do you see? What do you smell? What can you feel? What can you taste? Breathe normally. You are in the moment. You have pricked up your ears.

I guarantee you that when a rabbit suddenly feels anxious, she doesn't begin to play a tape in her head that says, 'Oh, stop being so ridiculous, you shouldn't worry so much, you are just making yourself sick,' or 'Why do I always do this, why can't I control my thoughts,' or 'Oh I knew this would happen if only I hadn't come on this path,' or even 'Oh no! I'm going to die! I'm going to die!' NO WAY does she do this -- she pricks up her ears, she puts her full attention on the sensory perception of the present moment -- she gives herself a sensory REALITY CHECK. She doesn't just keep moving along nibbling at grass and trying to ignore her feelings.

The card tells me to do three things today:

1. Don't talk too much today. Instead, listen to others.
2. Pay more attention to what is unsaid than to what is said.
3. Don't listen to internal tapes today. Take physical action to break that cycle - stand up and move to the side and ground in the present moment.

Maybe you needed that advice today, too.

Soul Survivor

This card instantly reminds me of Angela Bassett as Tina Turner in the movie 'What's Love Got to Do With It'. If you haven't seen the film, I highly recommend it. It's the story of how Tina Turner (Anna Mae Bullock) rose to fame with her abusive husband Ike, and how she found the courage through her Buddhist practice to leave him and move on in her life. There was a lot of darkness for her to overcome. Her own mother had been abused, and so that set the stage in her mind for thinking this was normal...and then her mother abandoned her to move on, and left her to live with her grandmother. There's no way to know what motivated Anna Mae's mother take one child and leave the other, but, according to the film at least, it caused Anna to be unable to walk out of her domestic situation, however painful it had become. Then Anna is introduced to meditation and chanting by her friend, Jackie, and becomes part of the Nichiren Soshu (Sokka Gakkai), a cult-like offshoot of Buddhism that focuses on the Lotus Sutra and chanting 'nam-myo-renge-kyo'. 

After she leaves Ike, she even cuts a record called 'I Might Have Been Queen': 

I'm a new pair of eyes every time I am born
And original mind because I just died
And I'm scanning the horizon
For someone recognizing that I might have been queen

For every sun that sets there is a new one dawning
For every empire crushed there is a brand new nation

Let the waters rise
I have ridden each tide
From the gates of the city
Where the first born died

And I might have been queen

I remember the girl in the fields with no name
She had a love
Oh, but the rivers won't stop for me
No, the rivers won't stop for me

I'm a new pair of eyes and original mind
With my senses of old and the heart of a giant
And I'm searching through the wreckage
For some recollection that I might have been queen

For every sage that falls there's an ancient child

And I might have been queen

I remember the girl in the fields with no name

She had a love
Oh, but the rivers won't stop for me
No, the rivers won't stop for me

I look up to the stars with my perfect memory
I look through it all and my future's no shock to me
I look down but I see no tragedy
I look up to my past, a spirit running free
I look down, I look down and I'm there in history

Ho, I'm a soul survivor

A soul survivor
On the river
But it won't stop

'I'm a new pair of eyes and original mind' - She is in this current incarnation, yes, but she is also part of the Universal Mind. 

Why do I think this song represents the Queen of the Night card? She's been through a lot -- but she has survived it. She has learned to 'rule' it. All of it is inside her now, running deep, like a river of knowledge that she is more than her circumstances, more than her past, more than her future. She is Queen of her own Night. She is a Soul Survivor. 

Whatever you are going through, you are the Queen of that Night, too. My favourite part of this song is where she sings 'I look up to the stars with my perfect memory' - perfect because she is part of the greater whole that has complete knowledge of all things (she may not be able to recall it while in this present incarnation, but she knows it somewhere deep within in the 'original mind') - 'I look through it all and my future's no shock to me' - because, like Krishanmurti famously said, 'This is my secret - I don't mind what happens' - 'I look down but I see no tragedy' - she's soaring over her own life here, surveying it, but has learned acceptance and no longer sees it as tragedy - 'I look up to my past, a spirit running free' - she survived her past, she always had the capacity to find freedom, even when she felt trapped - 'I look down, I look down and I'm there in history - ho I'm a soul survivor!' She can see that she has endured and will endure and is limitless. And she carries on, through this life and beyond. 

Beautiful. Queen of the Night.

What needs fixin in your life today?

Heart of Faerie Oracle, Froud 2010

Lovely tiled floors, there. The wild-haired little gnome woman looks a bit like a dalek in her strange little studded coat, pushing her mop. She really does look crazy as a bessy bug, but happy for all that.

This tiled floor and the name of the card, 'The Fixer', reminds me of a favourite film of mine, 'Batteries Not Included'. It's about these friendly little spaceships who visit earth and fix things. The rather senile old woman who lives in the building calls them the 'fix-its' because they like to fix things. And there's a scene when the little baby spaceships tries to help rebuild a demolished building by picking up one tiny tile and setting it in place. It's so sweet.

The little lady here is like the fix-its in 'Batteries Not Included' -- happy to help, following her instincts to put things in order and keep things running. She might not be entirely right in the head, and certainly does not fit any conventional ideas of normal, but she's happy, and that's the important thing.

I think the card has many lessons: 1) We can fix things for ourselves, 2) It doesn't matter how you fix things as long as you try - and it doesn't matter how it looks to others or what they think of you when you go about your fixing, and 3) I should really mop the floor today.

Hope you all have a restful Sunday. Wear your bathrobe all day and let your hair stick out in all directions. Who's gonna care? :)

Grrr! Don't laugh at me, I am not cute! I am very serious and very angry! Fear me, world! GRRR!

Heart of Faerie Oracle, Brian Froud 2010

I've decided I've had enough of tarot and tarot books and thinking. So I've chosen the least likely deck for the week -- Heart of Faerie by Brian Fround (Abrams, 2010). I don't often feature oracles here but I think maybe I'll start.

I will not be looking at the companion book at all this week because I'm rather tired of making a study of companion books, and because when I first bought this deck years ago, I read bits of the companion book and I have to say, I don't think it was exactly 'inspired'. Wendy Froud, Brian's wife, wrote it. With the best will in the world, it's bland and insipid and to be honest, unworthy of the luminous art it accompanies.

And doesn't that sound just like something Tink would say? This card is totally appropriate for me today. I have been GRUMPY. It started with that Faery Wicca deck that I decided I couldn't use and spent a couple of hours reading about, then managed to find a more suitable home for, and has continued all day long as I complain about the state of flat as I've tried to tidy it -- where does all this dust come? Why do I have so many books? Why do we have so many DVDs? Why do we have all this CRAP? And complaining to my husband -- why do you keep dropping things, every time you drop something I go straight through the roof! I have accomplished nothing today and it's already 5:30 -- what is the point of my life?? I feel miffed and annoyed and slightly ridiculous because of course there is actually nothing wrong, I just FEEL like pretty much everything is wrong somehow. Dang it! I stand with my arms on my hips and fume at the world. Dang it all tuh heck!

You can see this little faerie Tink is standing there defying the world as well. I can imagine all her little muscles straining and the little fever builds up and goes up her little spine and pops right out the top of her beanie there in a little ball of light  -- ping! Her anger is so ridiculous it's rather cute. And it will probably fizzle out as fast as it arose.

It's most likely a hormone surge anyway.

Heart of Faerie and Faeries' Oracle

Heart of Faerie Oracle and Faeries' Oracle are the two decks created by artist Brian Froud. The Faeries' Oracle came first (2001). The cards were created from images originally published in his book, Good Faeries/Bad Faeries. Then a few years later, Heart of Faerie came out (2010). Some people have strong thoughts about the differences and similarities between these two decks. I certainly don't think you need one in order to understand the other--they are both stand alone decks. But, to me, they also work together very well. I bought the two of them at the same time last year, so that may colour my opinion, though actually I have worked only with Faeries' Oracle since then, leaving Heart of Faeries until just this week.

There is a subtly different feel to the two decks. Faeries' Oracle seems more ethereal and otherworldly, whereas the Heart of Faerie seems more earthy, or anchored more obviously to the natural world. A large part of this is that the images in the Faeries' Oracle mostly show individual faeries or groups of faeries (Froud likes to draw them piled on top of each other, as if the world absolutely teems with faerie of all types)  in  a dark, empty or indistinct background. This lack of context lends a feeling of separation. Also, in Faeries' Oracle, there is a whole class of faeries Froud calls 'Singers', which are abstract beings of radiant light and energy. (These are actually my favourite images of faerie and I wish he would do a whole Singer deck!).

It's not about the abs

Can you ask the faeries for sensible daily advice? You can ask, but you might not always get. And then, sometimes you do. Having worked out yesterday, I thought this morning I would ask what I could do to sustain the momentum, and like yesterday's draw, one card led to another. (Heart of Faerie Oracle by Brian Froud.)

Heart of Faerie Oracle, Froud

What can I do keep up the momentum with the working out? 
I need to figure out what is keeping me captive. The reason I have become resistent to working out has to do with being held captive by something. The Heart of Faerie Oracle companion book says the Captive Man shows us that we are in thrall to false ideals that may be harming us. Of course I probably do have false ideals where the issue of fitness and health are concerned. First, I have perfection in mind as a standard against which I measure myself. Most of us have a tendency to do this, some of us more than others. Second, I have a false ideal that eating well and working out will weave some sort of barrier against ageing, illness and pain. That's something most of us have a tendency to do, too. We don't do it consciously, but somewhere inside us, we feel we've made a deal: If I do 'this' (whatever it is) then you (the universe, I guess) promise that 'that' won't happen to me. If I cook a homemade meal every night and keep the house looking great, my husband will never have an affair. If I go to church every Sunday then I won't ever have any doubts or worries to plague me. If I workout to a strict regime and eat well and lose weight and do my best, then I won't get old, get sick or die. These thoughts are not something we consciously do, because they're  irrational. It's called 'magical thinking' (at least I call it that) and it's not at all an example of skillful means. So when something happens to break the deal (I worked out and did well and still my knees are dodgy and I got plantar fascitis--or even less logically, I worked out and ate well and still I lost my job), then we say, 'Screw it, who cares, this doesn't work. Bring on the Doritos.' We may not know we're thinking that way, but we probably are.

Chunky monkey

I drew a card this morning from Heart of Faerie Oracle by Brian Froud and thought, 'What? Just the other day I was more or less advised by Tarot of the Sidhe to get more down to earth, and now I've drawn "The Dreaming"? Make up your mind!'

And so I drew a second card to expand on the first -- The Paradox. Oh, ha ha. Well, aren't you cute this morning. Yes, it's a paradox, hardy har. Something's good, but it's also bad. Something's bad, but it's good. Yeah, I get it. Dreaming's good and bad, yeah.

So...I drew another card. What exactly am I supposed to do, eh? And I drew -- The Pan. He's taking a flying leap, just like the Fool in my other draw!  Okay, I've got you. It's okay to dream...if I then do something. It's okay to think about stuff...if I then do it. Otherwise, it's not okay to just talk to myself about stuff. (Or write blog entries about it) I can see that. Jeez, stop harassing me!

Heart of Faerie, Froud

All I know is this morning I feel and look like a big flabby water balloon with a string tied around its middle. Glad it's warmer now. Time to stop thinking (or dreaming) about eating well and losing this weight I've put on. But no leaping or else my downstairs neighbour will be up here banging on the door again wanting to know what the heck is going on. Got to shop for some low impact (non impact!) workouts--instead of more tarot and oracle decks! In the meantime, I'll do my best to modify those I can, and fingers crossed he's not home down there! Grumpy old git.

Tough love, faeries. Tough love.

Converted box for Heart of Faerie Oracle

Here is my box conversion of the Heart of Faeries. (Complete with camera strap hanging down in the shot, oops!)

I simply cut the back panel off the slip case and then folded the ends over the flaps and taped them. You can see a bit of clear tape at the bottom (by the word 'Oracle') but overall I like it. The cards seem happy there, too. Which could be a different story altogether once I start working with them. But they certainly were not satisfied with being trapped in a slip case. Too claustrophobic! No quick exits!