November 27, 2010 - Judgement

When a Major Arcana card comes up in a reading, you're supposed to pay attention.  It means that whatever is happening is transformational, life-changing, important for your path.  Since I don't always articulate questions when I pull a card (of course there is always the unstated, I'm realizing more and more, things left unspoken but not, it seems, unvisited), it gives me a bit of wiggle room when trying to figure it out.  At least that's what I tell myself.

The scene depicted on the Judgement card is Judgement Day.  The angel of the Lord is calling forth the dead.  Those that are worthy will rise to heaven and those that are not ....  Well, let's just say most organized religions urge you not to be found unworthy.  I never quite know how I feel when this card comes up.  Sometimes judgment is necessary.  You have to commit yourself and decide.  Sometimes we are judged, fairly and unfairly.  It is a card of salvation.  The past is forgiven and you receive your just rewards.  It would be nice if we made it through life without mistakes, without hurting people, without being less than what we are and what we can be.  It's nice to know that we can be forgiven those trespasses and have our fresh start.

So what does it mean when this card comes up in a reading  Well, it can mean a day of reckoning is at hand.  It may also mean that all the waffling has to stop; that a decision needs to be made and stuck with.  I'm big on waffling.  I don't end things well, especially when I don't want things to end.  Sometimes though you do have to end things.  I keep wondering if Judgement shows up to remind me of the things that are lingering, the ones I haven't taken care of.  Another aspect of the card is salvation and redemption.  It could mean that it's time for a fresh start and that a fresh start is possible.  It could signal a time of renewed hope as well as a time to discover joy.  That would be nice, the renewed hope and discovering joy part.

In the Jane Austen Tarot, this card depicts the characters of Jane Austen's novel, Emma - Emma and Mr. Knightley; Mrs. Weston; Mr. Woodhouse; and Harriet Smith.  By the end of the book, each of these characters is ready for transformation, for the next level in his or her development.  George Knightley and Emma are deeply in love and engaged to be married; Mr. Woodhouse, a man who dreads change, is contemplating accepting it for his daughter's sake and his own.  Harriet Smith, a young woman of unknown parentage, has fallen in love multiple times and fallen out of it just as easily, and at last finds herself back where she started, with a proposal from Robert Martin.  Mrs. Weston, Emma's old governess, has married a gentleman and is expecting her first child.  Her life has changed and is going to change again from wife to mother.

What I like about the pairing of this novel and the card is how it demonstrates something critical about this card.  Transformation requires action of us.  Each of these characters had to make a choice, a judgment, and then act on it.  Fate didn't drop a happy ending in his or her lap.  Each of them had to act, to know what he or she wanted, and work towards it, trusting it would come.  This is the lesson I am taking from the Judgement card today.

November 26, 2010 - The Lady of Coins (Queen of Pentacles)

Another court card; so what else is new. When court cards appear certain character traits are highlighted. In the case of the Queen of Pentacles you are talking about someone who is down-to-earth, nurturing, bighearted, resourceful and trustworthy.  Are these me?  Or are these qualities I need to embody?  Perhaps this is the atmosphere I need to create?  Or maybe this is someone in my life.  The court cards are funny that way.  People wrestle with them, trying to figure them out.  At least I wrestle with them, trying to figure them out.

Since my time at Pacifica, I see them more as examples of Jung's typology.  Jung believed that as we individuate we become more and more able to embody typological aspects that are not our more natural fits.  Introverts become more extroverted, feelers can access their thinking function.

So what about Queen of Pentacles?  She came on a family day when I was making a home Thanksgiving.  It was a typical day with good and bad, highs and lows, ease and worry.  My dog had eaten something bad and ended up sick.  I could have over-reacted but remained calm and competent, caring but not crazed.   The Queen of Pentacles is the kind of woman you want around when you are in trouble, hurt, fearful, worried.  I hope I'm that kind of woman too, when I need to be.   I think was the day this card arrived, meaning I was as I needed to be, but larger lessons?  I'm just not sure.  I guess I'll keep drawing cards and maybe someday the court cards will make sense to me.  Until then, it's time to get the stock started, check on the dog, and try out that recipe with my daughter.  I think that's what the Queen of Pentacles would do at any rate

November 24, 2010 - The Lord of Candlesticks (King of Wands)

The court cards of each suit in the Tarot reflect mastery of the attributes of the suit, from the idealized optimism of the page to the mastery and expression of the king.  Wands represent the element of fire.  It is a suit of creativity, self- expression, entrepreneurship, and originality.  When the King arrives in a reading, fire of fire, get ready.  Here is someone who is honest, forthright, knows what he wants, and reaches out to make it happen.  He is bold, daring, and confident.  He has the courage of his convictions and always believes in himself.

So what does the King of Wands mean for me today?  My question was not really a question, asked but not really asked after receiving an email from someone who has meant the world to me, perhaps still does, and has hurt my heart more often than I can count.  It was a nice enough email, one that a even a year ago, might have made me happy, hopeful, but now brings a shrug and a wondering, 'so.'  I can tell you I don't feel one bit like the King of Wands.  There's no way I'm the center of attention, forceful in the pursuit of my goals, confident, a natural leader, bold and daring.  Creative, sure, but the rest?  The email reminds me of all I'm not, and then the King of Wands arrives to encourage me to be creative, inspiring, forceful, charismatic and bold.  Can I be the King of Wands?  Looks like I'm going to have to try.

November 23, 2010 - The Ten of Pentacles

Given that I was up early with money worries, selecting this card seems a bit ironic.  In the Tarot, tens take the culmination of the nines and kick it up to the next level.  You will find in the Tarot that as numbers repeat (e.g. 1 - The Magician; 10 - The Wheel of Fortune, and 20 - Judgment), you get different vibrations of a similar theme.  The tens of the minor arcana echo The Wheel, with two of the tens (swords and wands) reflecting more negative fortunes while the other two (cups and pentacles), reflect more positive results.

Pentacles represent the element of earth.  The suit is often referred to as "coins" and so it has to do with material gain and success.  If you look at the card, you can see times are good.  The couple is well dressed.  The patriarch looks on in comfort, his red robes luxurious.  Money is in the air.  Just looking at the card suggests the ultimate in worldly and material success.  If you are asking about your latest enterprise, this is the card you want to see.

The Ten of Pentacles is about enjoying affluence, being free from money problems, feeling financially secure.  It suggests you might be in the midst of a run of good luck and your material ventures will flourish.  Because pentacles represent the element of earth, they also refer to building foundations and following conventions. The Ten of Pentacles is about traditions, seeking permanence and success within the establishment.  This is a status quo card.  The key with the Ten of Pentacles is the understanding that to everything there is a season, a time to flow with change and a time to build foundations that will last.  We need both to be successful in this life, foundation and flow, foundation and flow.

So what does it mean to pick this card on a day when I woke up too early with money worries?  I think it means to create a firm foundation, to trust but to work for my financial security, to create a plan and then stick to it.  Now maybe it means too I will be free of money problems, in a happy way.  That's great, but I need to do my part.  If God helps those that help themselves, then I better get cracking.  If I do, maybe I'll get some sleep : )

November 22, 2010 - The World

The World is the last card of the Major Arcana.  If the twenty-two cards of the Major Arcana represent the path of life, our human journey from the Fool's leap to culmination, then the World is this perfect end, the thanksgiving feast before we begin again.  When it comes up in a reading, it's a good card.  It's the kind of card you hope to get, telling you you've integrated, accomplished, reached your goal.  This is the "Miller Time" card and yet why don't I feel better about it?

My question was the usual, "What do I need to know?" although at the care there is another pressing issue, this idea of moving on, of mastering the lessons of illness and death, of dwindling time and the need to make the most of it.  I will admit to being a bit obsessed, especially since my dad's death, with "getting" what lessons I need to and "getting" on with life.  I so want to see things in this black and white even though one of the lessons of the last few years has been shades of gray.

As those of you who read this blog know, I've been working with the Jane Austen Tarot.  Every deck has its particular philosophy, and I resonate with Jane Austen - the relational focus, the pithy observations, and a world where connections and love drive our stories.  Relating cards to stories has made it easier for me to understand the essence of certain cards even as I understand I am viewing the Tarot through a particular lens and bias.  Another year and I might find myself taken with another deck; but for now, since many of my questions seem to be relational, this is the deck for me.

So back to the World.  In the Rider-Waite deck we have a woman placed at the center of an oval.  Now this figure is sometimes represented as an androgyne, a being both male and female, representing wholeness.  This is reflected again by the oval, perhaps a laurel wreath, signifying triumph and being at the height of one's craft/field.  In each of the four corners is a representation of each of the directions/elements, suggesting that with this card, we have mastered and are reflecting every element within us.  Notice how the figure dances, light as a feather, perfectly balanced although never touching the ground.  With this card then, we have achieved balance.  Looking just at the imagery then, you don 't need to open a book to find the meaning.  It's clear by just looking at the card.  The tarot is often like this.  You just have to begin to think symbolically.

Now let's get back to where I am, which is holding this amazing card and not feeling the least bit amazing myself.  Do I feel whole, integrated, myself at last?  Yes, but it is not a static process, at least for me.  It is a constant becoming so even as I dance lightly in the air, I know I will take that step off the cliff, like the Fool, and begin again.  In fact, I want to, not because I enjoy the fall as much as I know that life is to be lived and that every equinox tips us this way and that, depending.  Do I feel accomplished?  This is a card, after all, of realizing your goals, of prospering, of seeing your dreams come true.  Yes, but each goal seems to lead to another goal and while I may be flourishing, I am still working on achieving my heart's desires.  The World is also a card of healing and sharing what you have, of giving of yourself, of being fully engaged.  Well, I am fully engaged, that's for sure, although that is not always a comfortable thing.  And as for being fulfilled, savoring he moment and counting my blessings, well that to is ongoing.  I tend to focus on what I don't have as opposed to what I do.  Thank goodness this is the season of thanksgiving and thankfulness, encouraging me to go against my grain.

The thing about Tarot is that maybe you're going to get a definitive answer, but it's always going to be something you already knew if you paid attention to your own sure, still voice instead of giving in to the endless chatter inside your head and out.  Mostly though, you're going to get reminders, and the cards are going to make you stop and think and perhaps, at last, understand yourself.  When you act, you will act consciously and perhaps realizing for the first time why you are where you are and what you have to do if you want to find yourself some where different.  And maybe you don't want to be anywhere different.  Maybe you're happy just where you are and that's good to know too.  Then you can savor the moment, count your blessings and find some contentment.

Return to Tarot - The Six of Cups

Every Tarot deck has it's own nuanced meaning.  This is how the Six of Cups looks in the Rider-Waite deck.  By just looking at it, you get a good feel for what the card is about.  Not every card speaks so clearly, but this one does.

So what do you see?  Two children.  One, an older boy is giving flowers to the young girl.  The flowers are white, the color of purity and innocence and shaped like a star, referring back to the Major Arcana card, The Star, the card of hopes and dreams.  There is a sense of nostalgia to this card and innocence.  It can be a card of children or a card of childhood.  It is always a card of simple goodness and encourages us to be our best - kind, generous and forgiving.

Now like any card, the Six of Cups has a darker side.  The innocence of this card can reflect a state of denial or blinding ourselves to the worst of a situation.  It can also mean we are being deceived.

So what does it mean?  Well, this is where interpretation comes in.  I'm encouraging you to begin to have conversations with your cards.  They will not always speak clearly or tell you what you should do.  For example, there are a few people in my life that do not honor me as I would like them too.  My question was about them. They are silent for long periods and make contact only when it serves them.  So when I ask, "What do I do?" and the six of cups comes up I have to sit with the card and begin to consider my course.  Am I being deceived or trusting them too childishly?  Maybe once but I am clear now and understand better how our relationship flows.  Do I forgive them and continue as before?  Probably not.  Once your eyes are open, can you ever not see what you have seen?  I can forgive but let them go.  I can forgive and ask more of them and hope they rise to the occasion.  I can wait and see what unfolds, seeing clearly and trying to remain detached from the outcome.  I'm choosing, based on this card, to do all three.
To be honest, I no longer want relationships without mutual respect.  I want to honor and be honored.  And I suspect with this new attitude, relationships that no longer serve will fall away.  Not without struggle of course, I am, after all, only human.

As you can see, in one way, this answer was crystal clear, but in another, wasn't.  For me at least, tarot is like that, a wonderful friend with sharp and loving insight, if I will only listen.

Open Letters To People Or Entities Who Are Unlikely To Respond....

Dear Professor,

     I know it's silly but I love some of these.  Check it out.  I know this is often a therapy exercise, but I wonder if it is truly therapeutic to write letters you know will never be received or if received, unresponded to....

     This is when I stop writing the email for this is exactly what I am doing, writing an "open letter"that may be received but will more than likely never receive a response.  This is nothing new.  I've been writing this person for years with a hit and miss history of call and response.  I wrote him in joy; I wrote him in rush.  I wrote him in sorrow, in fear, and anger too.  I wrote him in the thrill and thrall of an idea.  What I wanted, hoped for, was conversation.  What I got?  I'm not really sure.  Something or I wouldn't have kept doing it, found myself doing it still. 

     They say intermittent reinforcement is the strongest.  So maybe there is a purely behavioral reason for my continued writing in a vacuum.  And, that's probably part of it.  There is what we want, what we hope for, what we are sure we have in another until the slow realization that we don't.  Dreams die the hardest, and he was a particularly beautiful dream.  I'm sure too there is something of my history in this clinging and continuing, something that fits, feels familiar, painful but safe, the devil you know as opposed to the devils you don't.  

     Which got me thinking about who/what I would write an open letter to.  This old flame and perhaps friend?  Maybe.  But I'm thinking that he is a particular, the current face of a larger problem.  It's not the man, per se, at least not only, but what he represents.  I thought he was the love of my life, my soul mate, "the one."  Obviously not, and yet maybe there was something in the greater concept that was the real problem.  That's when the letter came.


Dear Soul Mate,


It is with great regret, after fifty-two years of deliberation, that I must humbly decline your insistence on happily ever after.  While true love and "the one" are beautiful theories, in practice fairy tale endings, like any and every ending, are problematic.  This is not to say you haven't been persuasive in your arguments.  If this was a debate, it would definitely be a close call and frankly, your eloquence might have won the day.  You are a smooth talker, truly.  


We were off to promising start, I'll give you that.  Ah, my first heated summer in Sacramento was pure magic.  I was nearly sure I had met my Prince Charming; and you, you whispered all those perfect sweet nothings in my ear, a magic spell I couldn't withstand.  And when the following months proved my Prince a frog, I realized the fault was not in my stars but in myself.  I choose poorly.  You, Soul Mate were off the hook.  You weren't what was wrong; it was all me.


We had our ups and downs after, but then what relationship doesn't, even the best of them.  My first marriage ended more sadly than badly; my second certainly began full of promise and the friendship at the core of it, that was a nice touch.  It made me think I just needed to tweak things a little and I'd get it right, that happily ever after was a distinct possibility.  Your best work came in my forties though, with the return of my first love, the young and hopeful one that never had its moment, that perfect and elusive mental, emotional, spiritual, physical connection.  I could have it all and here was the proof, this man, this love.  You nearly had me with that one and in the years after its end, I still thought the fault was mine, that you were still possible, that I could have what seemed the point of every story, that one, true, right love.


Maybe it was my dad's death that got me thinking, or maybe it was the approach of fifty-two.  Perhaps the heart attacks and quadruple bypass set me on the path.  I'm sure the love of my life's marriage to the woman he dumped me for played its part.  I started to wonder if I really needed you.  I started to doubt your promises.  Wrong and right, true and false, grew a bit harder to determine definitively.  I had been so sure what happily ever after looked like and was coming to realize that every love was true in its way, every relationship perfect and imperfect, at the same time.  I began to think that happy today was the best I could hope for, all I wanted, and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow would take care of themselves.  In these tough times, I think I may be downsizing, Soul Mate, and your position, at least in this corporation, has been made obsolete.  


No tears, Soul Mate.  There are plenty who still want you.  There are organizations clamoring for you.  You won't have any trouble finding people more than willing to hold out for happily ever after even if it takes them a lifetime, or more to find it.  It's been swell.  Now get going and don't let the door hit you on the way out.  I'm going to kick it old school with my darling daughter and Mr. Pretty Darn Good, my sweet puppy, and a life that, while not perfect, is good.  


Sincerely,


Susan M. Cross
Citrus Heights, CA

LET'S TAKE THE LONG WAY HOME

     One may wonder at the advisability of reading a memoir about death after someone close to you has died.  Of course that's the point of those kind of memoirs, to help us know we're not alone just at the time when we are sure we are.  But you don't read them when the death is fresh, when you're still so raw there's no words for what you're feeling, you're not even sure that you are feeling, there's just ache and void and the unimaginable stretch of life ahead forever without.



     I picked up Gail Caldwell's memoir of friendship, Let's Take The Long Way Home, before my father died.   Maybe I knew where this was headed before the call, the rush that would be ultimately useless the way those last-minute, 'he could die any minute' rushes always seem to be.  I don't know if I believe in precognition and even if there is such a thing, I'm not sure it matters.  We do what we do, even if we know it won't work, that we'll never make it, that somewhere along that ten-hour drive the phone will ring, the news will come, and a life will be over.

     I didn't read the book though, until I returned home, weeks after my father's death,  weeks after his funeral.  I suppose there are those who might question why I would read about the death of a friend, from cancer no less, so soon after my own father's passing from colon cancer.  I can't really tell you why I reached for the book, but it called and alone with my grief, no one really to turn to, no one experiencing this death as I was experiencing it, I turned to a book, this book.  Of course, if you knew me, you'd know I was, if not born bookish, raised bookish.  They were my friends, my most constant companions.  So in hindsight, why not a book?  What was the inscription over the door of the Library at Thebes?  Medicine for the Soul.

     I finished the book last night.  I could only read it in small doses or risk a flood of tears.  The beginning wasn't hard, even knowing how it would end.  The middle I could manage, knowing where I had been, where this was headed.  It was the ending that caught me, twisted me, turned me, brought me to tears at last, the tears that started and stopped and now flowed freely.  What got me was the talk of suffering, what we can know and what we can't and the relativity of such a word.  This is what hit me with my own father and the people who told me "at least he didn't suffer."  Who are we to say?  How can we know, what suffering is, how much is too much?  It's meant to console but such words cut me deeply.  For two weeks my father couldn't eat, fitfully slept.  He could not keep food down without intense vomiting.  He had endless bouts of uncontrollable diarrhea that required a diaper.  He experienced stomach pain that they tried to ease with heavy pain meds, so heavy he didn't wake during his last radiation treatment.  The last day, he had seizures that racked him.  Who's to say he didn't suffer, or that a short span was somehow less?

     Here is the passage that broke me open:
     That great heart - of course it took her a long time to die.  They had put in a central line of morphine within the first few days after the bleed, and so I want to believe that her pain was contained enough by the drug to let her float somewhere insouciant and free.  I cannot know this, any more than we can ever comprehend the next-door universe of the dying.  But the question was that haunted me most, then and for months after she was gone.  I do know that suffering witnessed is a cloudy and impotent world: The well, armed with consciousness, watch a scene they cannot really grasp or do much to alter.  Suffering is what changes the endgame, changes death's mantle from black to white.  It is a badly lit corridor outside of time, a place of crushing weariness, the only thing large enough to bully you into holding the door for death. (p. 143)


     Having watched my stepmother second guess the doctors, I understood this passage. The death was one thing but it was this question of suffering that haunted all of us, that made us decide to take him off life support, even when by the neurologist's reckoning my father was brain dead and beyond feeling any pain.  Stopped at the Mercey Hot Springs exit of I-5, trying to wrap my head around the fact my father was all but dead, I found myself sobbing, wondering, but it was the talk of suffering and ending his that decided me against prolonging good-bye.  He was already gone, so let the body go.  I would find my own way to say good-bye to my father.

     I knew how to let my father's body go.  I was less sure how to handle the loss of him.  Again Caldwell helps: I know now that we never get over great losses; we absorb them, and they carve us into different, often kinder creatures.  Sometimes I think that the pain is what yields the solution.  Grief and memory create their own narrative: This is the shining truth at the heart of Freud and Neruda and every war story ever told.  The death mandates and gives rise to the story for the same reason that ancient tribes used to bury flowers with their dead.  We tell the story to get them back, to capture the traces of footfalls through the snow. (p. 182)


     Day by day I'm coming to my own particular understanding of grief, of loss, of death.  I know it takes us places in ourselves we would never go otherwise, beautiful, dangerous, wild country.  I know we can embrace the exploration, like Lewis and Clark, or keep to the familiar plot we call ourselves and pretend we are nothing more until at last we believe it.  For me the exploration, the wilds, the unknown.  This is my journey, T. S. Eliot's journey: "We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started... and know the place for the first time."

Because I Had To Stop For Death

     I always wondered about the oft quoted poem by Emily Dickinson, Because I Could Not Stop For Death.  It seemed to me that we didn't have much choice about it.  Death made us stop and take notice.  We waited on him, for him, not the other way around.  I was born old and possessed early on a rather stoic view of death and ends.  But I grew in midlife more hopeful, more sure, thinking ends might come when I was ready as opposed to when they must.  I thought all you needed was love, that it solved all things.  I think it was the combination of heart and hip and heart, that schooled me on the unpredictability of life, the inexorability of change, which gave life a preciousness made more so by our all too transitory natures.

     While we are all born to die, some deaths are unexpected -- a child's passing, a sudden end out of the blue, a man or woman in his or prime.  When cancer is diagnosed, especially inoperable colon cancer, death seems inevitable, sooner as opposed to the hoped and planned for later.  My dad wasn't young.  He was 76 and had already lived longer than any male in his family.  When they found the polyp during a colonoscopy, it had penetrated the muscle wall but not beyond.  The surgeon took it but best practices demanded he take most of my dad's colon, all of his rectum, leaving him with a colostomy bag for the rest of his days, something my dad just couldn't stomach.  The thing was, he had congestive heart failure and wouldn't, couldn't survive the operation.  So they chose radiation and chemo, promising my dad seven to ten more years when it was done.  "You'll more than likely die of something else," his surgeon assured him, laughing.  Not sure I see the humor in this but that could be the grief talking.

     Two weeks before the end of his treatment, the side effects began to negatively affect my dad.  He was still eating but food wasn't tasting good.  He had started to wear diapers because the radiation had so impacted his rectum that he could not control his bowels.  They assured him it was normal, expected.  About a week before the scheduled end of the treatments, the nausea increased to a point that my dad stopped eating and drinking.  My dad could be a stubborn man.  It makes no sense to refuse food and drink, and he knew it, and yet he did.  The doctors chided him, told him it was expected.  They never once considered ending the chemo until he stabilized.  The day he died, they wheeled him into radiation, unconscious.  I wonder if they even considered that he was failing or if they were too blinded by protocol to do anything but what was planned.

     It's not my intention to try to second guess what should or shouldn't have been done.  There's no changing things; dead is dead.  Whether my father's death was expected or unexpected, doesn't really matter.  I've started crying, at last, necessary for healing but I wonder every now and again, why.  I loved  my dad but we were not as close as we once had been when I was young, as we could have been if each of us had not been so stubbornly sure of ourselves and our rightness.  With a diagnosis of congestive heart failure and inoperable colon cancer, it was pretty clear that his end was going to be sooner as opposed to later, and he had outlived his parents and his siblings.  My dad's end was expected and I had been given time to prepare (as if there could ever be time enough) and yet I wasn't prepared, not at all.

     Grief is a funny thing.  Crying uncontrollably one day, I couldn't stop my tears, nor could I tell you the why of them, who was crying.  Was it the little girl in me who was the source of those tears, the one who watched her father leave 40+ years ago distraught, watching him leave yet again, this time with no visitations, no every-other weekend, this time gone and gone for good?  If so, then cry little girl, cry your eyes out, cry over that broken heart, cry as your mother never let you, grieve at last, as much as you need to for a father gone, never to return.  Was it the woman who always felt orphaned, no orphaned for real, at last, and realizing no one wants to be orphaned?  The order of life dictates we lose our parents, we become orphans, but nothing prepares us really for the day when we become the parents and are, ourselves, no longer parented.  That might be worth hours of tears, rebirthing ourselves from children to parents.  Was it the child/woman who has lost her loves, her first and this one, her true first, the man upon which all others are measured for good or ill?  I'm not sure it matters which part of me is the source of all these tears.  I suspect all of those parts of me will have their turn at weeping, as will the ones I haven't met yet.  And so it goes, has gone, will go, from the dawn of man to his sunset.

     Grief is a funny thing, with its own rhyme and reason, its own time and modes of expression, its particular season.  I suppose in a half-empty/half-full kind of way, Death stops for us.  Mostly though, we stop for Death, stop because there is no choice to do otherwise.  And maybe we find our place to equanimity, as Emily did.  Perhaps that's why we suffer so many deaths and ends and losses, so that when the time comes we will join Death in the carriage with civility riding toward eternity.  I don't know and so I go on because as much as that seems a betrayal in a way, it is what we do, hurt after hurt, go on.

Grieving: Silence

     There were alone times the past few weeks, but this is the first in my space, the first time in the life I’ve built, the only place I truly settle.  It permeates everything, that quiet.  I could sit here, in just this spot, all day, without moving, doing nothing, and the world would go on around me.  An overwhelming sense of relief washes over me and I don’t know whether to cry or just sit and be, because at last I can, because for this time it won’t matter which, and I won’t have to be too strong or too feeling or too anything.  You forget how much peace there is in a void. In my forties life was full, to the brim, overflowing. My fifties are teaching me a hunger for fallow fields, for dark, for the quiet stir of nothing.  I’m finding peace and patience are not hard lessons after all and silence is a gift, a space, full of possibility, empty of expectation.

     I don’t cry in the silence, which frankly surprises me.  Instead I write, not sure what will flow from my fingers, not sure if there are words yet for what I feel or all I don’t.  My father died.  He had colon cancer and yet I would insist his passing was sudden and unexpected.  They seemed so sure he would survive the poisoning through pills and radiation.  And maybe they have to be that sure.  Perhaps they have to sell a slim chance at more life with the fervor of P.T. Barnum, and so they hide Vegas odds behind white coats and advanced degrees, specialties and best practices.  You spin the wheel and the house wins, always, sooner or later, usually sooner.  Of course, that’s probably the grief talking but it doesn’t make it any less true.

     My father died of the congestive heart failure he lived with and the side effects of the treatment that was supposed to save him.  The cancer didn’t kill him but the medicine did.  Even his last days, nothing staying in or down, they kept up with the chemo, kept on with the radiation.  Three more days to go, Mr. Cross.  We wouldn’t want the cancer to come back in a couple of years.  His last day, they took him to radiation so heavily sedated he never woke.  In fact, he was never truly conscious again.  He never recognized his wife or my brother and his wife, not even the little grandson he so delighted in.  He never knew I was speeding down I-5 trying to get there in time, though even now God knows what I thought I’d be in time for. You don’t think life or death, at least I didn’t.  All I knew is I had to get there and a 10-hour drive loomed before me as an impossible barrier. 

     After, of course, there are days spent in second-guessing, in what ifs and if onlys.   We need to know we did everything we could have done.  It gives us a kind-of absolution, the kind you need when someone dies unexpectedly and frankly, most of us die unexpectedly, even with a diagnosis of cancer or congestive heart failure or any of the myriad other death sentences which force us past if to when.  If you are of a philosophical bent, then you might just say that birth is a death sentence and you’d be right.  I would argue though, that no one seems much interested in philosophy and philosophers at times like this.  Even if Socrates or Seneca would have found their way to our house of grieving, little comfort would have been found in their company.  While most would have believed in an after-life and that my dad had led a good enough life to achieve it, Socratic questioning would have pointed out our failings of logic but would not once have soothed a sorrowful heart.  Seneca’s “why not” when we railed against the unfairness of a good life cut down, “why him,” “why now,” frankly would have pissed us off and more than likely guaranteed that the famous Stoic would never have been admitted to the house again.  The consolations of philosophy I suspect come only with time and healing comes, when it comes, one person at a time.

     Another silence, two days later, as the house sleeps and the day, graced with Delta breezes and a marine layer from the Bay, stays dim and cool so the neighborhood sleeps too, later than they might have, burrowing deeper in covers against the chill, burrowing deeper into dreams against the vagaries of life.  I sit, as quiet as my quiet house, and I still don’t know whether to cry or not, whether I have words or not, what I feel, if I feel.  I write because that’s what I do, because I don’t know any other way to get a handle on things, thoughts feelings, especially feelings.  My father is dead.  My daddy is dead too.  All the facets of this man who brought me into being, who walked with me in the garden, who cast me out as father’s sometimes do, have to so we will make our own way, our own lives, this man who loved me but could never find ways when I grew into womanhood to show it, all those faces and sides and pieces of him are gone., and I don’t know what to with that.  Maybe I never will.  Perhaps I learn in this silence that’s a gift, a space, full of possibility, empty of expectation.  Maybe I can be that circle drawn by Shisui as his death poem, the essence of all things, void and enlightenment.

Grieving: The Story of a Heart

I made this card a week before my father's death.  I didn't know he was dying.  He had been diagnosed with Colon Cancer but the tumor had been removed and the treatment was supposed to give him 7 to 10 more good years.  "You won't die of cancer, Mr Cross," was what the surgeon said, the oncologist too.  And they were right.  He died of his treatment.  It was curing that killed him.  There is a lesson in that but right now I'm not quite ready to go there.  This blog is going to follow the path of grieving.  I'm a writer.  I have to write and hopefully along the way, I'll find some peace with my father's passing.

The Story of a Heart

May 15, 2010 - Two of Wands

Today I asked about a friend, who was once more, and I think now may be much less.  This is the card that came up.  I can't recall getting this card in ages, if ever.  It's an interesting card about personal power, boldness, and originality.  I feel more victim lately, but maybe that's changing, or maybe it was never true, just a belief, as erroneous as so many others I hold until I can no longer hold them.  I once read chemical entropy described as the desire to hold as well as the desire to be held.  I know that's not the traditional view of entropy, but I've always leaned toward the chemical view of things.  It strikes me that maybe there is an entropy of belief.  Maybe we hold on to them and they onto us until one or the other lets go.  I believed someone a different man than he has turned out to be.  Do I blame him or is it just as much me, for casting him in a role and believing it him, confusing character with the actor.

But I digress.  Back to the Two of Wands.  This is a card that glorifies personal power.  It's the power of the Magician, brought to earth and manifested through earthly bodies.  When this card comes up you or someone else has the power and the other person, you or the other, want it.  The Two of Wands indicates that whatever the situation, power is a major issue.  Look carefully.  If you have the power, use it wisely.  If someone else has it, don't support him or her unless worthy.

The card can also being urging you to be bold.  Dare to do what you want, confront the situation head-on, face your fear, carpe diem.  It may also be asking you to show originality, do what no one else has done.  It's okay to be a pioneer; it's okay to march to a different drummer.  This card is telling you the time is right for a bold, creative move.  Well actually, this card is telling me.  It is my reading after all.

So what does it mean?  Maybe I have more power than I think in this particular situation, but I need to use it wisely.  It would be too easy to exact a kind of revenge and I don't want to be that person.  But I do want him to know that he hurt me.  And then, I think, I want to be done.  I'm not sure friendship should be this much work.  Wonder what tomorrow will bring, Tarot-wise, but I'll keep you posted.

May 14, 2010 - Justice

When times are bad, you know who your real friends are, who you can count on and call on, even if you don't.  Sometimes they surprise you, for better and for worse.  This has been a time of discovery.  My worst fears about some people have been realized, and my best hopes have been realized too.

The Justice card certainly fits all this evaluating, gathering facts, coming to an informed decision.  It's a fair card, but that doesn't mean it's always pretty.  I remember reading something in David Richo wrote in The Five Things We Cannot Change: And the Happiness We Find by Embracing Them.  I'm going to paraphrase it because I have to get to work but in essence: In a just world we get what we deserve; in a merciful world, we don't get what we deserve.  And because in a world of Grace, we really don't get what we deserve.  Grace tips the scales in our favor.  Grace knows all the ways we don't live up to what we could be and still blesses us for trying.  Justice wants that eye for an eye.  Grace turns the other cheek and still has a heart full of love for you.

The Justice card is about respecting justice, insisting on fairness, acting ethically.  You commit to honesty.  I say I'm honest and mostly I am but there are some places in my life where I have chosen the easy way, the white lie, even with myself, especially with myself.  The Justice card is about this too, about assuming responsibility, settling old accounts and debts, acknowledging the truth, and then doing what has to be done.  I think I get it at last.

When Justice shows up in a reading, it could mean you're preparing for a decision.  You're weighing all sides, determining right action, choosing with full awareness.  You are setting a course for the future.  I will tell you, realizing how short a time there really is, I want that course to be true and right for me.   Justice also asks us to understand the laws of cause and effect.  It asks you to accept the results you created, to see how you chose your situation, recognize the action of karma.  You understand at last that get a different result takes more than hope.  It requires us to understand our role in things and not just to know we have to do things differently to get different results, but to actually change ourselves.  This is where I am.  It isn't enough to love.  This is a tough realization because I always believed it was.

Another major arcana card so more transformation.  No surprise there.  I feel bruised and soft and ready for life and love and heart to mold me into the woman I want to be, hope to be, these later year of my life.  It's going to be a long, tough road.  As for how I do well, I'll keep you posted.

May 13, 2010 - The Emperor

The Emperor.  Hmmmmm.  There have been a lot of major arcana cards in my readings.  No big surprise there.  The last few years have been all about major transformation.  The Emperor though?

The Emperor is about fathering.  Okay.  My father is figuring predominantly in my life these days.  The Emperor is about establishing a family line, setting direction and tone, protecting and defending.  It's about guiding growth, bringing security and comfort and offering explanations.  Maybe I will get some explanations about my life, my beginnings, why he seems to keep me at arms length since I grew up, why I seem to so disappoint him.

The Emperor is also about emphasizing structure, creating order out of chaos.  Hmmmm.  That hits a bit close to home.  I could use some order.  It's the end of the school year and crazy and my house is a mess, my car is a mess, my life?  You guessed it.  A mess.  It is definitely time to bring some order into my life.  Maybe the Emperor is the perfect card for me right now.

The Emperor is also about exercising authority, taking a leadership tole, commanding, being in a position of strength, setting a direction.  Okay.  That sounds good.  He also encourages us to regulate, follow a regimen.  I need that too.  I haven't been good with walking lately.  Everything else seems to take precedence.  I know it shouldn't be that way.  Life just seems to run away with me by the end of the school year.

I guess you were the best choice, Emperor.  I should never have doubted you.

May 12, 2010 - The Star

The summer of 2007, when I was recovering from hip surgery and a figurative broken heart (the more literal manifestation would come two years later), the Star came in readings all the time.  In pain and hopeless, sure I would never love or be loved again, I found this card soothing, like looking up at the night sky and knowing my small place in a vast universe.  I will say, symbolically, this is one of my favorite cards - the pale blue sky, the stars, the woman with one foot on land and one in the stream (conscious and unconscious).  It's a place I'd love to be; a woman I'd love to be.

When the Star comes up in a reading, it encourages you to have faith in the future, think positively, and count your blessings (something I forget to do sometimes).  If you've been struggling in the dark. you can at last see the light at the end of the tunnel.  The Star is not a card of guaranteed success.  It is a card, though, of hope and inspiration and you can't have success until you believe it's possible and believe in yourself.  This is harder for me than I like to admit.

Now when you're hurt and hurting, most people, shut down.  You close your heart because when it's open, why that's when someone finds a way to stab you there.  The Star card reminds us to be generous, to give, to spread the wealth, to open our hearts.  If we don't love, how can we expect love to come to us.  I have offered with no reservations and hope one day to find myself there again - generous, loving, open, free with myself.

The Star is also about experiencing peace of mind, feeling serene, just like that woman on the card.  I'm getting there, experiencing it more and more but there are so many days, to many days, when I'm lost and scared and my mind is haunted by all the thoughts of what could go wrong.  Obviously, I still have quite a bit of work to do.

May 10, 2010 - Seven of Cups

This one stumps me.  Oh wait, look around the house.  Hmmmm.  Pretty messy.  Piles.  I'll get to it when school is out, when my dad is settled, when ....  Joan Bunning says that when this card comes up, you need to look carefully at your situation and surroundings.  Are you too ordered, too controlled, too rigid?  Or perhaps your situation is too chaotic, too messy?  One way, you may need to loosen up.  The other way, you may need to run a tighter ship.  I know right now I need to get organized.  I don't have the luxury of weeks.  If my dad is as sick as it seems he might be, I don't have much time.  I need to get busy and get organized, stat.

This is a card of wishful thinking.  In the Jane Austen Tarot, this card is depicted by Harriet Smith of Emma (Modern Library Classics).  Harriet falls in love easily, too easily, and she is easily directed.  Emma Woodhouse is clever and extremely willing to direct her impressionable friend.

Wishful thinking is an interesting aspect of this card, although I'm not sure what I'm wishing for.  That it's all a mistake?  That my dad will be fine?  That I will find my way to happy?  That happy is even possible?  I'm the Queen of Wishful Thinking, hoping and dreading all.  Only I'm not sure I'm wishing much, these days.  It's enough just to get by, to get one more day.

Another puzzle to ponder on this Tarot Journey.  Not sure how it will turn out, but I'll keep you posted.

May 9, 2010 - The Ten of Swords

The Ten of Swords is one of those cards you get whose bark is worse than its bite.  Of course that's not how it feels.  There is a definite sense of melodrama with this card.  Killing a guy with 10 swords smacks a bit of overkill and we do tend to like to go to the worse case scenario.  At least I tend to.  I am constant proof that a mind is a terrible thing to waste and it is a waste to turn as I so often do, to all the things that are wrong, to the worst case.

When the Ten of Swords comes up in a reading, you have bottomed out.  There's nowhere to go but up.  You think things can't get worse (I'm Greek so for me, things can always get worse... we're good like that).  Knowing its darkest before the dawn doesn't mean you don't fret that dark, worry it like a dog a bone.  Even knowing the sun will come, there is often little darker, sadder, more hopeless, than those bleak hours before dawn.

The Ten of Swords may also be saying that you feel like a victim, that you're bemoaning your fate, feeling powerless.  I can definitely say right now I'm definitely suffering from "why me?" Not sure how I feel, actually.  Mourning I think, the way I did years ago when my father left, that same sort of inchoate sort-of grief that comes when you have no control and are losing something precious.  Of course the dad I'm mourning is not the dad I know.  The dad I'm mourning is the father of my childhood, Sonny, turned Sunny, the center of my universe, the star I was happy to revolve around.

During my counseling training I learned the why of our relationship as my parent's marriage was disintegrating.  It's called triangulation.  Two pair to the exclusion of the third.  In my early years, that was my dad and I, leaving my mom out in the cold.  Later I'd learn just how cold those outlands were.  My dad and his new wife became the pair and I was the perpetual outsider.  But the child in me still misses that golden man.  I even found myself in my midlife in love again with sun and star, with a golden man, and I was so willing to make him the center of my galaxy.  I didn't.  It ended just the same, with him leaving, now re-married.  Funny how the history we do not understand, we are doomed to repeat.

This doesn't mean that the Ten of Swords might not herald true misfortune.  Sometimes it does, but then you know when it does.  Your mind doesn't have to fabricate swords and wounds; you feel those swords, know them, and you bleed.  I'm not sure what this card means.  Is the pain I feel from imagined swords, or real?  Not really sure but I'll keep you posted.

May 8, 2010 - Two of Pentacles

The Two of Pentacles is a card about keeping everything in balance, being flexible, and having fun.  It's an odd card to get given where I find myself.  It's a practical card, the way pentacles often are.  Maybe at the core of my worries is how I'm going to manage with being with my dad during his surgeries and treatment and taking care of family, not to mention work.  It's hard to imagine, but maybe.

On the plus side, it does say things will move forward smoothly and that I will be able to cope with the demands.  It also suggests that I can handle challenges, adapt quickly, and remain open to developments.  And although it doesn't say how things will go, it does suggest I'm strong enough to handle it.

The last part, having fun, is harder to figure.  I guess I'll have to wait and see how it all plays out.

The Jane Austen Tarot, puts a slightly different spin on the card.  The Two of Coins depicts John Wiloughby conversing with his bride-to-be.  Marianne Dashwood sees him and understands at that moment, why he has not written her or tried to see her in London.  John Wiloughby courted Marianne.  She came to think he would ask her to marry him.  In fact, most of the neighborhood believed the same.  Now she realizes he will not ask her to marry him.  She understands that she has fallen in love with a man who was not true.  Marianne is the Maiden of Cups.  Emotionally, she gives all, to love, and ultimately to grief.  She does not know balance and nearly kills herself for sorrow.

The Two of Coins urges us to remain balanced, even when things are hard.  It reminds us that this too shall pass.  Though for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, we can maintain our equilibrium.

Not sure what it all means.  I'll keep you posted.

May 7, 2010 - Five of Cups

This morning I picked the Five of Cups, a familiar card for me.  I think of the one loss I can't quite seem to let go of.  Of course it must mean that.  Then I call my father.  He had an appointment with the doctor this afternoon, a polyp.  Colon cancer is the worry.  Colon cancer is likely.  Death we push away to the side, we say "not yet, this is not his time," although of course there's every chance it is.  The Five of Cups is the perfect card, and all those times Death came up in a reading seems oddly prophetic.

Going to end with a W.S. Merwin poem.  I was not a good daughter.  Maybe I was the best I could be, all things considered, as I think he was the best father he could be, given where he came from, the hard hands, the deep hurts.

Yesterday My friend says I was not a good son you understand I say yes I understand he says I did not go to see my parents very often you know and I say yes I know even when I was living in the same city he says maybe I would go there once a month or maybe even less I say oh yes he says the last time I went to see my father I say the last time I saw my father he says the last time I saw my father he was asking me about my life how I was making out and he went into the next room to get something to give me oh I say feeling again the cold of my fathers hand the last time he says and my father turned in the doorway and saw me look at my wristwatch and he said you know I would like you to stay and talk with me oh yes I say but if you are busy he said I don't want you to feel that you have to just because I'm here I say nothing he says my father said maybe you have important work you are doing or maybe you should be seeing somebody I dont want to keep you I look out the window my friend is older than I am he says and I told my father it was so and I got up and left him then you know though there was nowhere I had to go and nothing I had to do W. S. Merwin

May 6, 2010 - The Tower

Again and again, when I ask about happiness, come reminders of change and endings.  It seems I must come to know the inexorability of change in my very bones, in the song of my blood, to great with yes what seems bad and what seems good.
So says the Tower when it comes up in a reading.

The Tower speaks of sudden change, happy surprises but more often it seems, startling ones, the ones we would avoid if we could, except we can't.  We can stay in bed and pull the covers over our head and still Fate will find us, for good or ill.  I think I have this and yet I know in my heart, I don't.  Not yet.  And until I do, change will come like lightning and fire and my tower will have to be destroyed in order for me to move on.

The Tower is also about releasing, not just explosive anger but emotions too.  It speaks of a time to let life break through our pretenses and ego defenses.  It urges us to let go, let go, all wishes and hopes and fears.  Let go.  Keep that grasp on things loose and easy, lest they be violently yanked from your clutching fingers.

The Tower is also about falling down, being humbled, toppling from the heights (oh, I have ben there, still falling it seems some days), suffering a blow.  Yet it can also herald a revelation.  You suddenly can realize the truth, have a burst of insight, get answers at last, see everything, in a flash.  The Tower is a measure of how we handle change.  If we flow with it, it does not bring total destruction.  If we resist change, then change comes explosively, with devastation.

May 5, 2010 - Two of Cups

Today the Two of Cups arrived.  It was actually the second card, 

I picked, one to clarify  the first which was, come on, you know what it is ... Death.  In the Two of Cups, a man and a woman stare at one another lovingly, ready to share the cups of their emotions.  When this card comes up, the beauty and power that is created when two come together is in the fore.  It isn't time to hold yourself apart.  It's the time to join in partnerships.  Connections are what's important.  If you are in conflict, look for a truce and a chance to forgive and be forgiven.  Here's where the card speaks to me - in a friendship that has been sorely tested, a deep and unspoken hurt, and forgiveness which I cannot seem to muster but have to if I'm going to move on.

In the Jane Austen Tarot, the Two of Cups depicts Catherine Morland and Henry Tilney when they first meet.  Catherine is young and smitten.  Henry is amused and intrigued.  It is a card that depicts the initial attraction but not whether the relationship has any staying power.  It tells you to focus on the other but with clear eyes, to what is as opposed to what could be.  Stay balanced no matter how infatuated you are.  

So how does Death and endings relate to the Two of Cups?  Not really sure but I promise I'll keep you posted.

May 4, 2010 - Seven of Swords

According to Joan Bunning, the Seven of Swords is related to the  Five of Swords, the card I get yesterday, "because both involve separation from others."  Hmmmmmm.  We're not really sure about the figure on the Five of Swords, he might be stealing or gathering, but the figure on the Seven of Swords is definitely up to no good and pretty pleased with himself.

The Seven of Swords is about running away, adopting a lone-wolf style, and hidden dishonor.  I can definitely relate to "running away."  The world seems a bit overwhelming and I have a craving for alone time that is becoming a hunger.  I don't want to deal with things as much as I want to run away, live alone, make the world all about my art and writing.  Even my dreams of the house I want is more studio than house and has little that would be comfortable for others, just the barest of bones.  Do I want independence?  Hell yeah.  Although do I really want it?  That's a harder question.  I know I need connection to others to keep me real and present and embodied.

In the Jane Austen Tarot, the Seven of Quills (Swords) depicts Mrs. Norris of Mansfield Park.  Mrs. Norris is a malignant character -- mean-spirited, selfish, saying one thing but definitely doing  another, putting self-interest first, above everything.   In the Toth deck, the key word for this card is Futility.  In the Rider-Waite deck, it's not such a bad card, calling it "a country life after competence has been secured."

What Would Jane Do?
"Listen carefully to what others say and observe even more carefully what they do before you trust them with the secrets of your heart -- or your pet ideas." (p. 111)

Not sure what that means for me today.  Guess we'll see.  I'll keep you posted.

May 3, 2010 - Five of Swords

I asked what challenge I would come up against today, and this is the card that came.  The Five of Swords is a card about self-interest, discord, and open dishonor.  The figure on the card is gathering swords.  He's got a slight, sly smile on his face which makes you wonder if he's stealing them.  The Five of Swords is about just that, setting aside the concerns of others and looking out for number one, you.  Now sometimes, we have to think of ourselves, especially when we are hurting or in danger.  Also, too, if we have given and given, depleted ourselves so much, we must take some time for ourselves to heal.  But sometimes, we want what we want and we don't really care who it hurts and how.  We forget that "we" is not just this body we inhabit, not just those we love, but all the world.  We are all connected and what hurts one, hurts all.

This is also a card of experiencing discord.  This can range from finding yourself in a hostile environment, to creating a hostile environment.  You can feel people are set against one another or you yourself can have an "us versus them" mentality.  Either way, you are experiencing conflict.

Finally, the Five of Swords can be about witnessing open dishonor.  You may have lost your moral compass, persuaded yourself that the ends justify the means,  Maybe you have sacrificed your integrity, lost sight of what is right.  Whatever victory comes this way is a dubious one.  Do I want to win at any cost?  Oh I want what I want, but I won't hurt someone else to get it.

In the Jane Austen Tarot, the Five of swords is depicted by a scene from the novel Emma.  A group has gone strawberry picking.  In the afternoon, resting, conversing, something hurtful is said by Emma.  It is clever but it is unkind, and it hurts a woman who has lost her social standing in the town, someone Emma has known all her life.  Emma is called to the worst in herself by Frank Churchill, a young man who is clever and calculating, or can be.  Emma brings out the worst in him.  They are two who should never be matched.  Luckily, they have other loves to settle them, ground them, help them move beyond their own selfishness.

It's an interesting card, determined to make one think if s/he has been on the receiving end or the giving end of verbal assaults.  Not sure what it means specifically, but I suspect I'll find out.  I'll keep you posted.

May 2, 2010 - Death

Hmmmm.  Death again.  To quote Roy Neary of Close Encounters of the Third Kind: "This means something.  This is important."  Obviously I need the remedial Tarot class since the deck needs to bludgeon me with the Death card for me to grasp a vital lesson needed to come to a place of more consistent and more constant happiness.  So, yet again, let's explore what Death means in the tarot.

Were this Hollywood, I might get a bit nervous with Death's regular appearance.  The Death card though very rarely has to do with physical death (thank goodness, otherwise it might time to beef up my health insurance policy).  We're all going to get there sooner or later, one of the blessings or curses of being human.  Death's appearance though doesn't suggest I need to worry specifically.

The Death card is about endings, completing a chapter, concluding unfinished business.  It urges you to put the past behind you and it reminds you that you have to close one door before you can open another (apparently Death is a bit of a stickler for manners).  I do have one bit of unfinished business I cling to, rather willfully I must say.  I'm pretty obedient, until I'm not.  No telling what will make me dig in my heels but when I do there's no real moving me.  This bit of old business has been a sticking point for me for a few years now.  Although I'm pretty sure genetics played the biggest role in my recent health issues, I suspect this stubborn holding on to what no longer serves played its part too.  Maybe it is indeed time to let go, move on, and don't look back.

The Death card also comes up when you're going through a transition.  I have to laugh because really, as human beings, when aren't we transitioning.  We think we're stable, sure.  We think the foundations we have built are firm, capable of withstanding any shock.  And life comes out of the blue and knocks you off your feet.  It can be a wonderful tumble or the worst, it's still change and it still messes with us.  The Death card can signal a change in status, moving from the known to the unknown, being cast adrift.  Recently I heard a song from a band called Frightened Rabbit.  The song, "Swim Until You Can't See Land," made me wonder if sometimes we don't just swim, cast ourselves adrift, hoping we can find our way back.  I get the feeling that's just what I did and all this foundering and floundering has nothing to do with the gods but with myself.  I needed to change, to find my way, and I had tried every way but this one last trust in the ocean to save me.  It always has before so why not now, when I'm as lost as ever been, even situated as I am in a marriage, family, work, world.

The Death card can also be about eliminating excess, cutting out what isn't necessary.  It asks us to shed our old attitudes, concentrate on essentials.  Get down to your bare bones and I suppose sing them back to life, at least that's what the Wild Woman would do.  I have had for the last few months, since my heart surgery actually, a desire to winnow, to shed, to find what my essentials are and focus on those, to let go of all this inconsequential stuff and concentrate on what matters.

Finally, Death is about experiencing inexorable forces, and I suppose I would add, accepting those forces.  There is a difference.  When the Death card comes up you may find yourself in the path of sweeping changes, being caught in the inescapable (this pretty much sums me up the past few years).  It tells you what has come cannot be avoided and so your only choice is to go through, ride your fate, and see where it takes you.  I've been doing this, more or less gracefully, more or less willingly (grace and willingness are directly proportional) for a while but apparently need to do more.  And I may be coming to the place of accepting the inevitable and moving on.  If I want a card other than Death, I better get to it.

May 1, 2010 - Seven of Coins

The Seven of Coins is a card about assessment, reward, and direction change.  It's a card that urges you to take a time out and appreciate your handiwork.  The man in the card has worked hard and the fruits of his labor are there for everyone to see.  He could harvest and this card often talks of rewards coming your way, especially after hard work.  He could also take a breath and assess if he's on his true path., and adjust his course accordingly.  When we're busy, sometimes we don't take the time time to reflect on what we're doing and why.  We have to take stock in key moments, and when Seven of Coins shows up in a reading, this is one of those key moments.

The Seven of Coins sometimes arrives when we are at a crossroads.  It's so easy to continue along a familiar path; so much harder to change course, to forge a new path in a new direction.  When this card comes up in a reading you have the opportunity to make a course correction if you need to, or a complete about-face if that is required.  Change is still possible without the wholesale destruction of the Tower.

In the Jane Austen Tarot, the Seven of Coins is depicted by Robert Martin of Emma (Modern Library Classics).  He is a hardworking gentleman farmer who falls in love with a young woman of questionable parentage, Harriet Smith.  She refuses him at the urging of her new friend, Emma Woodhouse.  Ultimately, Harriet comes to happily accept Robert Martin's proposal, but until then Robert Martin works his fields and goes on, hoping but not pining for what has been denied.

What is most interesting to me about the Jane Austen Tarot is how often the stories depicted by the cards have a strong resonance for me.  I too loved and was refused.  I went on, continued, worked hard.  I did grieve overmuch.  I was not as focused as Robert Martin.  And I gave up, I suppose, unlike that hard working young man.  I don't know.  Maybe my goal is not unachievable.  I do think though you can't lose sight of yourself, your land, your labors, your life.  Even when your goal seems out of reach, you go on, live life to the fullest.

What Would Jane Do?
"But of all things this card preaches, patience is the greatest message.  If you give up on something you really want, you will berate yourself for a much longer period than the one you are spending wishing for something to come to fruition.  Understand that what is meant to happen will happen when the time is ripe, and your continued application is the only element that will move the desired situation closer.