Archives for Tarot Blog Hop

Samhain Blog Hop: Shadows and Death

Posted by  on Tuesday, October 30th 2012     

Read the blog post before mine.

Samhain is a time of shadows, of the parts of ourselves which we have kept hidden and tucked away. For me, as someone who has survived abuse and extensive bullying, it’s the scars and the wounds, which I’ve kept hidden away from the world. They don’t see the scars. They don’t see that I don’t trust easily, and it’s once bitten always shy. I smile. I run my own business. I take care of my disabled mother, and my unemployed, and probably should be on disability, partner. I take care of our fur, feathered, and scaly children. And sometimes, if I’m lucky, I take care of me.

I’m in a time of great transition right now. I’m leaving behind a whole lot of my past life, sometimes willingly, sometimes by having it ripped away from me. I’m reminded of a couple of tarot cards: Death and The Tower.

I’m being blasted back to my foundations, leaving behind all which isn’t serving me or good for my growth. And the me that lives in the shadows isn’t ready to face the light. Oh, I want to. I yearn for the light, to show all of my beautiful, glorious self, to the world. And yet, I am hiding in the shadows because the light is so too scary. I prefer the dark.

I’m reminded of two very powerful cards: 8 of cups and 8 of swords

With the 8 of swords, I’m sitting in a cage of swords of my own making. It’s warm there. It’s comfy. I can get everything I need through the bars of the swords. But I also can’t go anywhere or can’t leave. On the 8 of cups, I’m walking away from overflowing, bountiful cups to seek a leaner life, perhaps one that follows my heart. I turn my back on the things which have sustained me, but something tells me that some of those cups contain bitter drinks. And maybe, just maybe, by walking away I’m finding a new and better life.

Looking into the dark corners of our closets, or our lives, isn’t a pleasant experience at times. It can reveal things we’d rather leave into the shadows, and it can bring things to light that need some much needed air.

Shadows and death do not have to be scary things. Sometimes, digging around in the shadows and letting old things (habits, thought processes, self-image) die, might be the best thing we can do to step forward and embrace the light offered by the turning wheel of the year.

 

This entry is part of the tarot blog hop. Read the post before mine. Or, you can read the next post. Go back to the beginning, and read all the wonderful posts for this blog hop.

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category: mental health, Tarot Blog Hop
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From The Tower To The Sun

Posted by  on Thursday, June 21st 2012     

There’s a moment when you’re awake and the crack of dawn and the world is dark outside. And then, in an instant, it gets lighter. And lighter. Usually, about an hour before this time the robins start to sing, so you know sunrise isn’t that far away. For a third shift worker, this moment is filled with dread, because it means you’ll be going home and trying to go to sleep in full sunlight, which your body is aware of no matter how many layers of room darkening curtains you use, and relief because it means your shift is over.

These days, the sunrise means something different these days. It means freedom. It means light. It means new days and new opportunities.

Since the theme of this Tarot Blog Hop is “Celebrating The Sunrise”, I want to bring this back to the tarot. In the deck, there are cards separating The Tower and The Sun, but for anyone who has lived through the implosion of The Tower, any sunrise, even if it isn’t the one heralded by the tarot card, is a welcome sight. When we are hit by that bolt of lightning, or the “clue by four” from the universe, it cuts deeply. The tower crumbles. Rough-hewn foundations fall, and the storms never seem to clear.

But, they do.

And the sunrise comes. Goddess, how those of us who have lived through The Tower card long to see that sunrise. And we should celebrate it with gratitude, with joy, with relief, with tears of happiness, with every core and fiber of our being, because that sunrise means we’ve lived through the storm. We’ve achieved another day on this planet to try and get things right again.

I’ll admit, it can be tough to celebrate the sunrise when you’ve just watched the tower fall and the storms roll through. Sometimes we get so caught up in things that we find it difficult to celebrate the sunrise. We should. In fact, we should go out of our way to celebrate the sunrise, because it’s a very powerful symbol of our life. The day comes around again and things always look fresh and new.

How do you celebrate the sunrise? Does the Sun Salutation series of Yoga poses call to you? Do you take a moment to smile and look over the world, loving that it’s fresh and new. I know I love to listen to the robins start to sing, because their joyous song mirrors how we should be greeting, and celebrating the sunrise. We should be happy that it’s here and celebrate it.

This Wednesday is the first day of Summer. It’s the longest day of the year. It’s a very important sunrise because of this, and we should especially have celebrated this one. Summer is here. The time of sun, surf, and sand. When we can spend lazy days outdoors and enjoy long days and fun evenings.

Find a reason to celebrate your sunrise. Any reason will do. If you’ve lived through The Tower, or if you’re just simply enjoying every day as they come. Find that reason and celebrate all the sunrises in your life — not just the solar ones.

This post is part of the Tarot Blog Hop. You can see the entire list of all posts here. The previous blog in this chain can be found here, and you can also move to the next blog in the hop. Thank you for visiting.

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category: Tarot Blog Hop
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Tarot Blog Hop: The Fire Tends To All

Posted by  on Tuesday, May 1st 2012     
Fire Tarot

The High Priestess from the Fire Tarot.

When there’s no fire, there’s no heat, no light, no warmth…there’s just darkness. Now darkness in and of itself isn’t bad. We like it dark to sleep, and without darkness there would be no light. But without fire, we wouldn’t have most things we enjoy in our modern lives. We couldn’t cook. The spark from the spark plug which powers our car engine is fire. When we look at our lives, fire really does tend to all.

But let’s look inside ourselves, because if we don’t have fire there, then we really won’t have fire in any aspect of our lives.

The fire tends to all. Don’t we tend fire? If we don’t tend fire, if we let it care for itself, then won’t it get out of control?

There may be times that it does, but the wildfires which appear so vividly on our news are also cleansing and renewing the land. No, it may not be tending to what we want it to tend to, but it is tending to something. Likewise, anyone who has tried to start a fire with wet wood knows that no matter how hard you try, you can’t get the fire to stay going.

If we look at our own inner fire, there are times when it can be like that, when we want to start a fire with wet and sodden wood, so there is no spark. We feel dark inside, cold, no light, no warmth. Our inner fire, if it’s present, truly does tend to all. With this fire we can share our light with the world, our heat and our energy will go forth and spread itself to others. Our fire does tend all, because with our actions, we can share our light and love with the world. So as we tend to all in our world, so, too, does those we touch. They share their light, their fire, and so on, until the fire is tending all in the world.

There are times, though, when we don’t have a fire. When even the tiniest spark cannot be found within us. In those times, we need to look to others or look to our spiritual sources to find their fire, not to steal it, but to let it be a spark which will once again create a blazing fire within us so that we can go forth in our lives with heat and light to share. Again, their fire tended ours, and the fire tends all.

As I light my candle from your fire, so too can you replenish your candle from mine. That’s what fire is about, and that’s how fire can tend to the all. May my fire always burn brightly and may your fire never go out.

This entry is part of the Tarot Blog Hop. If you would like to read the entry before mine, please go here. If you would like to read the entry after mine, then please go here.

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category: creating reality, Tarot Blog Hop, wellness
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Tarot Blog Hop: Painting New Life Into Old Stories

Posted by  on Monday, March 19th 2012     

Being a writer can be frustrating at best. It’s a lot of work in isolation without a lot of feedback. There’s rejection letters which might be a line or two, and there are sales, but it’s difficult at best to determine which marketing efforts produced which results. But one of the joys of tarot is that they can take an old story and paint new life into it.

So, like the writer in the box to the left, we may feel completely broken down, but a card or two turns up and we find ourselves renewed and ready to rewrite again.

So how can tarot help the writing process?

First, the archetypes of the tarot really speak to a writer’s unconscious. We work with those archetypes, whether we know it or not. The Lovers speaks to choices and Death speaks to transitions. We might be channeling the Chariot and making impressive forward motion when the muse is with us. Or, we might be the Hermit, wandering in search of our own story’s truth.

Like your own writing, your ability to use the tarot to help with it is limited only by your imagination. Pull a card to determine a key plot point. Do a Celtic Cross spread to learn more about the main question your heroine has to solve. Or, use our Book Pyramid Tarot spread to get in depth with the story idea, including what you need to look out for, your character’s best and worst qualities, and if this is the book for you.

Or maybe you just need to find an image that will spark your imagination and a new story. Tarot, after all, paints new life wherever it goes, and that includes your imagination.

This entry is part of the Tarot Blog Hop. If you want to hop to the next article, simply click here.

(If you didn’t hope from the previous article, located here, feel free to hop on back and read it, too.)

This blog entry is dedicated to a very good friend who allowed me to use my tarot skills to help her with a very cool story.

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category: tarot, Tarot Blog Hop, writing
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