March 11, 2011 - The Three of Wands/Three of Pentacles

I am at an interesting place in life.  I suppose we always are, but some moments, some situations seem particularly full of possibilities, like that time after high school when life stretches before you and nothing seems certain and nothing seems impossible and of course you're going to do it right the way your parents didn't.  Fifty-two seems to be one of those times.  My daughter is graduating high school, close to embarking on her own.  I still have good years of work left and my creativity is at a steady burn.  I could move and taste life at another place, let that geography soak into my being and alter me.  I could still do many things.  My cup is still more than half full, or at least could be.

That was my state of mind when I picked my cards, one for the reading and another to clarify.  The way isn't clear ahead (when is the way ever really clear), so I've been peering into the mist, trying to discern where I might be headed.  So the Three of Wands is actually an interesting and appropriate card being, as it is, a card of foresight and leadership.  This is a man who stands on the cliff edge like the Fool, but leaps in full knowledge of what he wants and the price.  The Three of Wands moves fearlessly into new areas, boards the distant ships and sails boldly wherever they are headed.  That tells me that I will have to leap not knowing where I'm headed.  I will have to have faith in myself, in the inherent goodness of life, in the belief that whatever and wherever life takes me, I'm exactly where I need to be.  I couldn't have done it before my heart attack and bypass surgery, but I think I can do it now.

I probably didn't need to pick a second card.  I actually didn't pick it; it picked me.  The Three of Pentacles is about teamwork, planning, and competence.  This is actually a good reminder for me that life is a collaboration and futures are made hand in hand. It also requires some planning, although, that said, it would be a mistake to think we could plan exactly where we are headed and how we will get there.  Still, God helps those who help themselves.  I need to be ready for the coming future, so I can leap fearlessly.  I need to plan and prepare for my future, for it is coming.

May I be ready.

Tuesday, March 1, 2011 - The Ten of Cups

Today I got a "precautionary" pink slip.  I knew it was coming but that didn't make it easier when it came.  And I found myself near tears again and again, not because I don't think I'll find some work, but because the last few years have been hard and I wanted work, at least not to be.  That said, I will confess I continue to have difficulty with change.  Even knowing change is inevitable, irrevocable, doesn't make me hold on to things I want any less tightly.  You'd think I'd have gotten used to keeping a loose grasp; you'd think I'd be prepared to have things ripped from my hand for no better reason than because.  Alas, no.  I hold to friends, love, and apparently to work long past done.

So I turned to the cards when I had a bit of distance and perspective and this is what I drew - the ten of cups.  When this card shows up in a reading, it often signals a time of abundant blessings.  It tells you to reach for the blessings you deserve and they will come to you.  This is a card of peace, joy, and family.  All in all, not a bad card but a reminder, I think, of what is important.  The job is good; I like it, and it helps give us what we need as a family but it's not the most important.  That was the thing, sitting problem solving at home this afternoon; it all boiled down to we will make it work, regardless.

The ten of cups reminds us that joy is our birthright.  It was a good reminder on a day like today.

February 7, 2011 - The Ace of Wands

Any time an Ace comes up in a ready, it signals a time of beginnings, of potential, of seeds planted.  There are no guarantees with Aces, just possibilities.  They require you to be active, to do your part if you ever hope to see the potential come to fruition.  For anyone who gardens, you know there's a lot between planting seeds and harvesting crops.


Wands as a suit are about action and energy, creativity and courage.  When the Ace of Wands shows up in a reading, it urges you to tap into and utilize your creative force.  Expand your potential, create a better way, come up with a solution, express yourself, open, unfold, do.  Make the staff of you bud and branch.  The life force runs strong in you.  


This card also encourages enthusiasm.  You feel eager and fired up.  There's an aura of excitement around you that is inspiring to those around you.  You are ready to tackle the world and those around you just might do the same when exposed to your infectious enthusiasm.  


When the Ace comes in a reading, you are confident and courageous, or you should be.  You believe in yourself and therefore are willing to tackle challenges and tasks that seem beyond your limit.  Want to write a book?  With the Ace in your court, you could make it happen.  Of course it does require you to take the initiative, to actually write, to apply yourself, get the skills you need to make it happen.  It's not offered on a silver platter.  If you get it, you know you deserved it.  


Here's what Joan Bunning writes about the Ace of Wands on learntarot.com: "When you see this Ace, examine your life to see how its potent, confident energy could work for you. Be daring and brave. Sometimes you have to risk to get what you want. Look for the path that will excite you and push you beyond your limits. Seize the initiative, and let your enthusiasm take you to new heights. Wands are the suit of individual power and fulfillment. This Ace tells you that a time of passion is beginning. You will be able to assert your best for all to see.


The Ace of Wands is also the card of creativity. Under its influence, you can become a conduit for inspiration and invention. Forget tired, worn-out solutions. You have the chance to be original. Trust your own creative potential, and there will be no end to what you can achieve."


Sounds pretty auspicious.  Now it's up to me to make it so.

February 5, 2011 - The King of Wands

When Kings arrive in a reading it is often a call to act as he would.  Coming on the heels of The High Priestess, a card of waiting, patience, and letting things unfold, it's an interesting draw.  Wands are a fire sign, so the King of Wands is all about active expression of the traits of Wands.

The King of Wands is creative.  He possesses natural artistic abilities which he uses for useful purposes.  He is original and inventive.  This King is also inspiring.  A natural leader, he instills confidence and sets an example for others to follow.  He is also forceful, charismatic and bold.  It's easier to imagine myself The High Priestess then this outgoing King.

So what does the King mean for me?  Is there a person in my life that expresses him- or herself like this king?  Are there actions this King takes, that I should?  Maybe.  Hard to know.  Last night I received the following fortune: You are often unaware of the effect you have on others.  Maybe I am the King, sometimes at least, and just don't know it.

In the Jane Austen Tarot, the King of Wands is depicted by Frederick Wentworth, the dark haired hero of Persuasion.  By the time Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth meet after a long absence, Anne is a spinster and Wentworth is a successful Naval officer.  Captain Wentworth has not forgiven Anne for rejecting his offer of marriage years before, when he was a young seaman with unsure prospects.  And although he still loves Anne, he finds it difficult to let go of his anger and forgive her.  This King's journey then is one of impulsiveness tempered by time, an older but wiser man who is not so stubborn to give up a chance at true love simply for the sake of his pride.

This King of Candlesticks (Wands) makes sense to me.  I too am older and wiser and lately have been given the opportunity to forgive if not forget, to love instead of hate, to stay open when instinct tells me to retreat, to close.  This card then is the reminder of what's at stake and how one sometimes must let go of anger and hurt in order to love truly and well, and live truly and well.  At this age, I find that living and loving well are noble pursuits, ones I don't mind pursuing.  I'm not so interested in anger and grudges, in the kind of fairness that is strictly measured as this much and this only.

Frederick Wentworth is also a creative man.  Not an artist per se, he does understand the art of living and he has made himself what he is.  He is a motivated and enthusiastic man, getting things done.  In the midst of writing a novel and exploring and expanding my collage, not to mention being a mom and working full time, I need this King's energy and enthusiasm to get things done.

The King of Wands then is a good card, an important reminder of a different way to look at myself, a different way to be, active in the world, striking forth when it is warranted, waiting patiently when that better serves.

February 1, 2011 - The High Priestess

Just back from the Santa Barbara Film Festival, this was the card I drew.  It was an interesting weekend, to say the least.  I spent a day with my past, and there weren't tears, and there wasn't passion, at least not the young passion there had been years ago.  I was present but detached, there and yet observing.  I guess you could say I was the High Priestess, not making things happen but glorying in each unfolding moment.  


When the High Priestess arrives in a reading she heralds a time of inaction.  We live in a culture which values action, doing, expression.  The cycle of movement is contraction and extension; the cycle of respiration is inspiration and expiration, but in each of these active cycles, comes moments of pause, of rest.  She counsels patience, the High Priestess.  She tells you good things come to those who wait and that sometimes "desires can be realized through the stillness that gives desire a chance to flower within the fullness of time" (Joan Bunning, learntarot.com).  Waiting and patience are not my strong suit.  Life, though, has shown me 'grandmotherly kindness' these past few years, rapping me often with a hard stick the way Zen masters do to make a point, to move us out of complacency.  I'm learning a glorious patience and a a marvelous stillness.


The High Priestess suggests it is time to use our intuition, to trust your inner voice, to open to dreams and the imagination.  I've been quieting these past couple of years, trying to hear the small, still voice inside.  It struck me this last weekend that I hear that still voice loud and clear these days.  I have come to the High Priestess place, backed into it you could say.  So now what?


I'm thinking she's here to tell me to open to what could be, to wait, to watch, to look deeper, to settle into the unknown and to let it unfold.  No pushing.  No making something happen, or trying to.  That's all illusion anyway.  As I wrote to a friend recently, he in the thick of his 'interesting times,' at best we collaborate with life or it with us, at worst we are swept away like Odysseus with only our faith and Ina's scarf between us and the sea.  


So I will be the High Priestess and whatever other card comes as I take this journey.  I'll sit, steeped in mystery, and let whatever is there flower.  

January 26, 2011 - The Five of Wands

I'm getting ready to head down to Santa Barbara for their film festival.  Santa Barbara is a place of my greatest joys and deepest sorrows, a place of dreams and hopes, haunting, lovely and terribly problematic, for me.  I keep going there for many reasons.  It inspires me, fills my heart.  There are good friends there.  And the place itself calls to me as strongly as any person.  My first love is there; perhaps my first love is Santa Barbara and he, is the second, the embodiment of the place.

Sometimes when I find myself in Santa Barbara, I see my first love.  We are "friends" or we try to be.  It is a relationship that is problematic for me, but psychologically rich so I keep working it as it keeps working me.   It seems I may see him this trip, my first love.  Of course, it is just as likely I won't.  This is part of our dance, the on and off, ebb and flow of us.  Most of me is sanguine, finally, although there is a part of me, still, that frets and fusses over the yes and no, he will or won't.  So I asked the cards what I should I keep in mind this trip, if we meet.  The Five of Wands came (the Five of Candlesticks in the Jane Austen Tarot).

The Five of Wands, like most fives in the Tarot, is about struggle.  Looking at the young men sparring, this isn't a full-out, knock down, drag out battle.  It's a minor skirmish, which doesn't mean that you won't get hurt.  The Five of Wands is one of those days where nothing seems to go right, where a dozen small annoyances make for one very bad day.  It's a card of quarreling, competition, and hassles.  I'm thinking this is not a particularly auspicious card for this visit.  Oh well.  These days I'm a wait and see kind-of gal, so we'll do just that, wait and see what comes.

January 24, 2011 - Ace of Cups

I love this card.  There is so much peace in it, so much hope.  Sure, like all Aces it holds the idea, the seed, the possibility, in this case of deep emotions, intuition, intimacy, compassion and love.  And yes, this card, like all the cards, requires us to use our gifts, to make the effort.  Tarot is never sure, never Fate, at least in my understanding of it.  Tarot reminds us that life collaborates with us every step of the way.  We bring our gifts, and maybe we get the promised prize.  Of course, we must always be open to what may come and how it may come.  So many times we are so sure how the story will play out and surprisingly find ourselves in another story entirely.  The key seems to be this: Be open.

When the Ace of Cups arrives in a reading, it suggests the emotional and intuitive realms are at the fore.  The seeds have been planted but what grows, if anything, depends on you.  Many get this card and think 'new love.'  And yes, it could mean that, but it doesn't have to.  Any part of the emotional realm is under this card's provenance.  So be prepared.  Look at your life and see how its emotional energy can work for you.  Maybe it is a new love.  Maybe it is forgiveness, of yourself or another.  Perhaps it's time to reach out and connect with others.  Or it could be that it is time for you to drop your reserve and let your feelings show.  Only you will know what this card means and it requires that you practice patience and self-reflection.