New Year New You 2016: Week 2 – Goals

I’m doing Miss Sugar’s New Year New You Experiment in Radical Magical Transformation (again) because I find it’s a really good way to kick my own ass into getting things done. You should try it!
 
Instructions: Determine what you want to accomplish in 2012 2016 using both magical and mundane means, then break it down into magical and mundane steps that you can take.
 
Tarot Card: Queen of Cups for some fairly obvious reasons (see below).
 
Thoughts:
So, yeah. My Goal is to wake up my Queen of Cups energy and to become More Receptive on all fronts.
This feels a bit scary (but it probably should), and also a bit… foolish? Like I’m doomed to fall down the rabbit hole of Second Chakra Energy money-and-sex stuff (because Receiving Makes You Vulnerable and/or Wanting Is Shallow, or whatever other internalized crap I’ve got to deal with… is still up against money and sex being strongly conflaited in my culture, even as we deamonize sexworkers… yada yada yada, I’m already getting Meta in an effort to avoid looking at my own Issues, look at that) rather than focusing on some sort of heart-opening/ocean-soul thing that would be just so much more valid and less greedy and just… eugh. Internalized issues? You bet your ass!
 
Questions (and similar):
1. How are you going to accomplish these large goals in your daily life?
I… have no idea.
Which doesn’t work as an answer, I know.
It’s hard to think of “receiving” as something I can initiate.
None the less, I can pay attention. Like it says in this post, I can actively notice when someone does something nice for me in order to circumvent That Thing where it only takes one “no” to cancel out a dozen “yes” responses and maybe help me stop thinking that nobody wants to give me things (even when “things” are non-physical stuff like “kind words” or whatever).
 
I can do some of the exercises in Ecstasy is Necessary (because, yeah, some of this – lots of this, even – is totally to do with sex)
 
I can Try New Things. Stick with me here. Being receptive means being open. It means less holing up in my living room (oh hai, Winter… look who just arrived) and more (a) eating Korean BBQ, (b) reading at open mics (again), (c) volunteering, (d) taking classes, (e) going to Free Cool Events in my neighbourhood, (f) going to Free Cool Events in different cities[1]!, and other stuff like that there.
 
I can Ask. I can Use My Words and see what comes my way. (This is terrifying, but there you go).
 
2. What magical acts (rituals, spellwork, whatever it is you do) can you do to help you accomplish this goal?
This is almost easier. I’ve been taking Glamour Baths for ages, now, and word has it that my High Femme Smoulder is basically unstoppable. This is good to hear (for many reasons), and means that this particular form of magic is actually working for me.
I’m good at Honey Pots – calling things to me.
What I need to sort out now is how to see, and take, the opportunities/gifts/wooing/kindness/etc that come my way. I can:
 
Re-enchant my (new) mascara to help me see and recognize those things as they come.
 
Keep up with my ritual baths and honey-pot feedings, since those seem to be working well.
 
Re-charge my favourite lipstick(s) for added glamourous vavavoom.
 
Do some of the exercises in Urban Tantra with specific regards to opening up my energy flows.
 
Do Kundalini yoga (using an online free video, provided I can get it to stream properly) because… it helps. Though I’m not sure how/why. But go with what works.
 
Do “water meditation”. Yeah. You know that thing that everyone learns when they read Starhawk (or Silver Raven Wolf, or whatever you read as a baby Pagan learning the 101 stuff), where you send your roots into the earth and draw energy up from the earth’s core? I could never get the hang of that. But I tried looking for the water table and BAM! Now that’s energy I can access and draw upon! So I figure, what better way to access my Queen Of Cups mojo than to practice opening up to, and drawing in, specifically water-based energy? Gotta be worth a shot, right? Right.
 
3 and 4. What does [your preferred method of divination] and/or [patron deities/spirits] have to say regarding how to make sure you put these plans into action AND what kind of road blocks may keep you from doing so?
Yeah, I totally conflated #3 and #4 here. I get a lot of radio silence (or possibly I’m just failing to pick up the signal – Also likely. “Receptive” has a lot of meanings and I need help with all of them) when I ask questions without some sort of translation service (such as tarot cards) in play.
 
Yesterday – and I realize this isn’t the most Intentional way of doing this (call it Radiomancy with divination cards) – I was shuffling my Daughters of the Moon tarot deck[2] and, possibly because the cards are big and round and hard to handle, half a dozen cards toppled out of the deck, first two, then four, right after each other. I decided to go with it:
 
Road Blocks:
Reversal (the Hanged One)
Conflict (4 of Flames)
 
Actions to Take:
Cerridwen (Crone – King? – of Flames)
The Moon
Hokhma – Decisions (8 of Blades)
Mami Watu the Mermaid / Pisces (Maiden – Page-Knight – of cups)
 
With regards to road blocks I might have to deal with, the “reversal” card sometimes just means “hanging around and waiting” AKA: Inaction. That one’s easy enough to understand, although not strictly super helpful in terms of specifics. The “conflict” card is… one of the ones that doesn’t match up, to my knowledge, with anything like a traditional tarot card. The closest I can guess is the possibility of there being “too many cooks” involved in my personal receptivity-building project (I understand the 4 of Fire as participation/get-involved/everyone-onto-the-dance-floor/collaboration kind of thing) or maaaaaaaybe that I might “plateau” at the first sign of leveling up or start balking (inner conflict??) when it comes to trying to open up with/to someone(s) else.
 
As far as steps to take (or allies, or helpful hints, or however you want to read this bunch) go, I’m inclined to take the Moon card pretty literally, given that my own Moon Goddess handles trust and emotional stuff (and the ocean) as part of Her pervue.
As for the rest… Cerridwen’s cauldron of creation and transformation. Recognition of harms done in past relatioinships and needing to (actively) choose, moment to moment, whether those ripples are going to be the boss of me right now. That mermaid, again, calling me to dive deep, seek self-understanding/compassion, but also to trust and take risks. Which, okay, that last one is pretty clear. 😉
 
I don’t know if my Ladies were talking through those cards, but I’m willing to keep them in mind going forward, since they (mostly) seem to make sense.
 
Anyway. Week Three awaits, but it’s probably going to Await a little longer (which is hilarious, given that the topic is “something you’ve been putting off), since Week Four is pretty date-specific (New Year’s and all it’s accompanying guilt-ridden self-sabotage) and Miss Sugar commands that we all do that one right on time.
 
I’m off!
 
 
TTFN,
Meliad the Birch Maiden.
 
 
[1] Yeah, I’m looking at taking “working vacations” to nearby cities where I have Crash Space in town, and booking 3-5 modeling jobs in as many days… if I can manage that. But: Receptive. (Gahds, so much of this is “power of positive thinking” crap. I feel like I’m subscribing to The Secret or something… Eugh…)
 
[2] Which, in my opinion are really not a tarot deck at all. They’re something new built from the bones of the tarot, but… while most re-interpretations / new-interpretations of the tarot stick to the 78 cards and their original meanings – so while some decks might put the emphasis of the 3 of Cups on “relationships between women”, others might put it on “your cup runeth over”, and still others might focus on “community building”, “partying to excess”, or “so many (too many?) options”, these different emphases are still all aspects of the actual card – the DotM deck amalgamtes a number of major arcana cards, conflates the pages and knights together, and redistributes the “troubling cards” of the suit of air across the entire minor arcana so that, basically, the elemental suits look a little bit less like the houses in Harry Potter.

New Year New You 2016: Week 1 – Making Way

So I’m doing Miss Sugar’s New Year New You Experiment in Radical Magical Transformation (again) because I find it’s a really good way to kick my own ass into getting things done. You should try it!
 
Instructions: Clean the house, weed the wardrobes, and generally get physical stuff out of your space (or back in its place). THEN Magically cleanse your place (and your head-space, too). Miss Sugar suggests doing this during the waning moon, which is technically happening right now, but only just.
 
Tarot Card: If I were to assign a tarot card to this week’s prompt, I would almost definitely pick a Fire card. After giving the eye to the Queen, the 8, the 2, and the 4 (as well as The Chariot, as it happens – all that “get-up/wake-up and go” stuff), I’m inclined to stick with the Two of Fire (“Possibilities”) because of its connections to balance & harmony, planning & decisions, and new ventures, plus the fact that it’s a Two, which means this is all about taking small (but consistent) steps towards getting the hang of Doing(New) You well.
 
Thoughts:
I feel like the accumulate/de-stuff-icate cycle is one that I’m never going to actually finish. Like the Wheel of the Year, periods of abundance and paring down happen in their seasons.
I’ve got a year-at-a-glance horoscope (I get the we’moon date book every year as a birthday present to myself) telling me that, in spite of Scorpios (in theory) being better at elimination than accumulation, it’s time to deal with wealth (of various kinds) and material security.
 
A talk with a friend, about two months ago, included the ways in which we’re both more “switching up” than “throwing out” these days. Accumulating stuff, yes, but it’s stuff that will last. Good quality things. Things that actually fit our senses of self (whether we’re talking furniture or machinery or clothing), rather than “single-season” or otherwise disposable items that we’ll wear out too quickly because they’re poorly made. Glass not plastic. Cotton and linen, wool and silk rather than polyester. Things we can repair or alter ourselves. Things we’ve even made ourselves – thus getting Hours Of Fun from the making, before getting (hopefully) Decades Of Fun from the wearing or using of what we made. Things with stories attached to them (“I got this skirt at the Harvest Swap, it used to belong to A. Fatale” or “I got this necklace/yarn/knife on my trip to Iceland, last Summer” or “My wife found this antique yarn winder behind the crack house on the corner – Can you believe they put it in the trash??”).
 
I feel like the stuff in my life is edging slowly towards being the kind of Stuff that is (a) limited (hahaha, here’s hoping), but also (b) almost permaculture-y in the way each item comes with many “purposes”: This shrug will keep me warm (and stylish!) when it’s finished, keep my hands (and mind) busy while I’m knitting (and spinning) the yarn, help me strengthen chatty connections with other fibre artists in my community/ies, and help me become a better knitter & designer, too. This cheese plate is beautiful (beautiful is a purpose in my world), can be used to serve cheese and other goodies, and comes with a story because it’s a wedding present from the House of the Dragon.
 
As far as the state of my home goes…
Yeah…
Thanks, entirely, to our annual Winter Solstice Partay (and the corresponding, too-brief but much-appreciated visit from our Archivist), our house is actually… not a total mess.
Admittedly, “not a total mess” is about as good as it gets around here. Our front room is functional as a dining room, but it’s also doing multi-duty as (a) my spinning wheel storage room (none of my spinning-related machinery is functional… yet), (b) my wife’s steam-engines display area, (c) the work-shop-ish area (still lots of stuff for doing leather work, including a sadle-stitching bench and two sewing machines, but also jewelry-making), and (d) the garage because my wife – somewhat understandably – keeps her skis, ski boots, winter boots, and her bicycle in here.
Still. We’ve been eating at a table with chairs (rather than eating off our knees, sitting on the couch) for a couple of months, and I am overjoyed about that!
The party has meant that our kitchen is stocked (overstocked) with really fancy food, and the living room is cleaner and tidier than it’s been in a month.
We still have (lots of) art and family pictures to put on the walls, and heaven only knows when next we’ll try to tackle that business. I’m eyeing January 1st as a date to take the (put up on December 20th) Winter Solstice Decorations out of the windows, though we’ll see about that as well.
 
Energetically speaking… My altar has had a cursory clean (using a Lysol wipe, of all things!), and I’ve been keeping up with my candle offerings. It’s time to start making water offerings again, I think, though I’m not sure how I’m going to do them. I may pour (boiled) water into the shell-composed tea cup on my altar once a week. Or I may do the water on the stove like I used to do. Maybe a bit of both? I don’t know. But it seems like the right thing to do, so we shall see where I go with this.
My wife has mentioned that my insense gives her headaches, so I’m going to have to find a different way of energetically cleaning my space – It may just mean that I do the Big Clean shortly after she leaves for work on a day when I know she’ll be spending the night elsewhere (Yay, Polyamoury!), since this is one of the least labour-intensive (and therefore most likely to actually get done) means of House Cleansing that I know of. That being said, ti’s been a long-ass while since I gave my place that kind of a clean. Time to get on it, me-thinks.
Other than that, I gave my brain a bit of a once-over as well. Not in the sense of going to my “Magical Internal House” and giving that a wipe down, but by having a look Inside and doing some self-care and assessments (relevant for Week 2, as it happens).
 
Questions:
1) Is my time being well spent?
At this point, mostly yes. I mean, I still Internet waaaaaaaay too much, and I know that. I’m generally making a point of keeping off the computer (like turning it right off, when possible) when my wife’s at home. I find myself looking at things that I’m neglecting though.
Some of it is “Should” stuff, like sending out more job applications for part-time/casual reception/admin work. But that’s not actually what I’m concerned with on the NYNY Project Front this go-round. (Doesn’t mean I should ignore it, and I do need to acknowledge it, but it’s not my focus. You’ll see why that’s relevant in a second).
Stuff I’ve been neglecting due to the guilt-shame-fear spiral that I have around money and employment:
(A) Self-care & my mental-emotional health. Which is part of why my goals for this Challenge are what they are, to be honest.
(B) Spiritual study and contemplation. Yes. I’m such a bougie whatever-whatever, but that stuff is actually important to me, and I’ve been missing it for over a year. I want to get it back! I’m considering the remarkably affordable Alternative Tarot Course from Little Red Tarot, actually, as part of way to get some of this back – this is also why I’m picking a tarot card for each week of this Challenge.
ART for the sake of making and finishing art. Yes, I’ve got a poetry manuscript on the go, and I want to keep up with that. But I miss scribbling stories for the hell of it, and I’d like to see if I can’t do something like the Fanfic 100, but for Random Short Stories and try to flash-write something in the 2000-word range, maybe once a week on Productivity Wednesdays or something).
 
This is all stuff that my Poisoned-by-Capitalism brain has a lot of trouble with allowing me to “get away with” doing (and, yes, finding myself a damn part-time job – the kind that lets me blog/novel/poet as needed in between phone calls and accepting deliveries, while earning a salary – would seriously help on this front, but go with me here) , but which are also all things that I think will seriously help me with my actual NYNY goals as well. Funnily enough, those goals have to do with putting down the baggage I’ve been hauling around for 20 years so that I can get myself free (or at least free-ER) and be happier and more open to Receiving things. More on that next week.
 
I’ve signed up to do one volunteer shift per week at a local food centre that focuses on neighbourliness and skill-building. I figure, I’m a fucking Kitchen Witch. Food is how I help people out. I might as well do it on a larger scale and see where it gets me. If nothing else, I’ll learn how to Feed The Multitude on donated produce, and that’s a skill I’d love to have.
 
2)What Big Rocks Are You Carrying?
I am carrying a couple of doozies. The whole point of doing NYNY again is to actually put some of them the fuck down. But I’ll fill you all in on that with my Goals post for Week Two.
 
 
TTFN,
Meliad the Birch Maiden.

Full Moon – Long Nights Moon Crests

It’s Mother’s Night. It’s Friday. I’ve got poly family hanging out in the living room (my wife all snuggled up on the couch with her other primary), where the altar candles have just been lit, and other poly family calling (or being called) to say hello. I have Fabulous Friday Dinner roasting in the oven (it’s a duck stuffed with wild rice and dried fruit, plus a couple of veggie sides – one of which hasn’t been started yet).
 
Two weeks ago, I was sick as a dog, and going through a self-made emotional wringer. Four days ago, I was still in that particular pit, but starting to lift myself (with help, y’all) out of it.
 
The messages I’ve been getting (since October, easily, but more and more since then) have all been pointing me towards “be more receptive”. Everything from “trust” to “accumulate rather than excise” to “use your words to ask for what you want”. My year-at-a-glance horoscope and “born under” notes in my shiny new date book, numerous tarot readings, and a lot of conversations, have all been saying the same things, which basically boil down to this:
 

Receptivity
Queen of Water
(Image of a Tarot Card ft a Woman’s body, superimposed over a blue, watery background. Her arms are lifted high & held wide open, and there is a blue lotus where her head would be).

 
I’ve spent the last few years trying to become a Queen of Fire – outpourings of creativity, hospitality, generocity, and personal power tempered by grace and the ability to adapt. I’m still aiming for those things (though doing a lot better with them than I was when I started that particular trip), but it’s time to balance those aims with some Water energy.
I need to learn how to receive, how to refill that well, so to speak, so that all my Queen of Fire out-pourings actually have something to draw on. I need to do like my recent New Moon tarot reading said to do, and start recognizing and internalizing that I’m not “going it alone”, that people care about me and have my back, that interdependence means letting others give to me, nurture me, too.
 
I recently figured out some of my astrological signs – I’ve known my Sun was in Scorpio for forever (I’m sure you’re all shocked, shocked by that particular revelation), but learned the other day that (a) my Moon, rather than being in Pices, is in Cancer, and (b) that Pices is actually my MidHeaven[1] sign. Turns out my Rising Sign is also Cancer. Hands up if anyone is surprised that my signs are all water, all the time? Nobody? Didn’t think so.
 
So it’s time to start living up to that.
My goals for the coming new year – I say, with that big, beautiful full moon rising as I type this – are to integrate a big dose of that Queen of Cups energy into my life and self.
 
Four years ago, I said: “I want my LIFE to be this glorious mash-up of art and sex and joy and beauty, I want my LIFE to be built on and fueled by, and in a symbiotic relationship with, pleasure in all its many forms.”
 
I still want that. But to get it, I can’t just be all push, all the time. Yes, I want to burn brightly with all sorts of sensuality. But I need to be able to take that beauty in as well.
 
Sending prayers to Maia, my wise, queer Lady of the Moon and the Ocean, to help me learn these ways.
Wish me luck!
 
 
TTFN,
Meliad the Birch Maiden.
 
 
[1] Your MidHeaven sign, apparently, has to do with Career. Pices’ best job-fair options, apparently, are: Art, art, art, art, art, healing and/or nuturing professions, more art, and foot massages. (Maybe I should work part-time at a day-spa? Dunno).

Longest Night, Darkest Night – Ruminations on Winter Solstice

It’s raining here. I’m telling people that I’m pretending we’re in England (it helps that both of my partners are Brits). It’s grey and wet and occasionally even foggy.
Not winter weather by any stretch of the imagination (in spite of a long-gone skiff of snow for Winter Solstice), but it’s still really freaking dark most of the time, and the lack of snow means that street lamps and moonlight aren’t getting a reflective boost from the white stuff that’s (not) on the ground.
It’s really not helping my SAD-affected brain much, I don’t mind telling you.
Consequently, I find myself reflecting more on “dark night of the soul” this MidWinter than in years past.
 
Winter Solstice touches on a lot of things, even when you don’t have a wedding anniversary and a multi-faith extended family thrown into the mix. The beginning of the real Long Dark, the time of killing cold (this year’s weird-ass weather notwithstanding), and the months-long slog to get from here to Spring Equinox (or even Imbolg, when we’ll actually see that the days are for-real getting longer again). The technical beginning of the lengthening days (although see above on that front) and the celebratory stuff that comes with that[1]. The chance to honour the darkness as pro/creative space, the origin of al things. A time for reflection and meditation – whether we’re talking about Root Time, or candle-light vigils, or even just the more secular considerations that come up around the dark end of the year as the calendar is about to turn over. It’s all sorts of things.
But it’s also a period of stress (E.G.: getting together with Family of Origin – or not being invited to do so, for that matter – is a thing that us Queerdos, in particular, have to deal with in a lot of cases) and, frequently, loneliness, and even the gathering of chosen families – where we get to be our Whole Selves with people who really do love us – can still involve big emotional crashes in the lulls between get-togethers. I’ve been feeling it a lot this year – in spite of numerous Good Things going on… but:
I woke up this morning feeling lighter. Still exhausted, still sore, still slightly ambivalent about Weird Christmas[2], but feeling so much more hopeful than I have in ages. I don’t actually know what’s causing this. I mean, yes, it might be the subtle energies of marginally longer days starting to happen. It might be all of this planetary love stuff going on, but I suspect it has more to do with getting “I Love You”s in the mail (and the house), plus catching myself out on one of my (old, stupid) patterns while actually having an idea of what the outcome will be if I let it go (again, in this situation – all that “healing happens in spirals” stuff is so irritatingly true, I can’t even tell you).
 
Yesterday, I dropped in at my wife’s workshop for a visit and, upon learning that I’d spent much of my own work-day ruminating about The Things, she said “I don’t want you to just go home and fret”. I told her “Sometimes I learn things when I do that”.
I know I have a bad habit of fretting about the precarious What Ifs of life, and occasionally fail to enjoy the beauty and the wonder and the joy of things because I’m troubled by the things that could destroy them. It’s not a good thing to do, and it makes my life sadder, to be sure, and it’s frustrating (when I catch myself at it) to know that I’m doing it to myself.
Even still, it’s also important to take that time, dig down into the dark twisty hidden parts of your own brain, and see what you can haul into the light.
We’re in Root Time now, have been (technically)for a while, so maybe it’s no surprise that I’ve been gnawing on the roots of my own fears, trying to find where they begin, trying to figure out (again, always again) how to put them to rest.
Regarding my particular set of “dark night of the soul” revelations, I’m flinging myself into Miss Sugar’s “New Year, New You” online course (again) to see if I can use magic to push the odds in my favour when it comes to dealing with my personal deamons.
Wish me luck!
 
 
TTFN,
Meliad the Birch Maiden.
 
 
[1] Although I kind of wonder if that big celebration of light and heat and merriment, with its accompanying high-calorie feasting, isn’t a way to kick off the dark-and-cold time where we’ll be mostly eating root veggies and huddling around the fire, and give us some momentum (and extra fat AKA insulation and reserves) to help get us through the worst of it.
 
[2] Christmas isn’t my Holy Day. I haven’t ID’d as Christian for something like 20 years at this point, and the whole Bethlehem Story stopped resonating with me, even as a form of annual nostalgia, at some point in my early-mid 20s. So the 25th of December qua Christmas is basically an extension of Winter Solstice Festivities (e.g.: Mothers’ Night, the Norse celebration of ancestor-women that, iirc, falls on the first full moon after Winter Solstice – handily the 25th of December this year) combined with the usual families, feasting, and generalized washailing that goes on between the 20th of December and the 5th (or so) of January. But this year – possibly due to the combination of Zero Snow, double-digit (above freezing) temperatures, and my (multi-faith) relatives doing Xmas in Calgary this year – I feel pretty much nothing-what-so-ever about the actual 25th of December. Which doesn’t mean I’m not cooking a duck and watching movies with my metamours, it just means that it feels really weird to feel NOTHING about this particular date.

New Moon – Long Nights Moon Begins (…So Keep on Asking!)

Sick. That’s where I’m at right now. Sick, probably about to start bleeding (if my emotional state is any indication), and feeling like I’m not getting enough done. My head is swirling with all the Things that I need To Do, all the prep for the annual Winter Solstice Partay (baking, cleaning, decorating, making multiple batches of candles), all the knitting (presents for various out-of-town folks), sewing, mending that’s been piling up. I’m dreaming up a massage balm for joint & muscle pain relief (juniper, pine, clary sage, rosemary – a powerful blend when it comes to shooing away nightmares and calming anxiety, too, handy that – maybe why myrrh as a bass note) that should help my wife and, with any luck, a friend in Toronto, too.
 
I’m (still) really enjoying making multi-purpose goodies. Massage balms that help with body pain, but also do some psych work at the same time, or that have aphrodesiac properties mingled with magical traits that make for joyful romances while calming down any feelings of jealousy or insecurity. Beeswax offering candles scented & charged for a particular purpose. That kind of thing. I gleefully threw some money at the Next World Tarot Deck in order to fund its creation and pre-order my deck (I love my Zen Tarot, but this is also glorious, and I want it to exist. In my house, even. Even if her vision of The Chariot reads like The High Priestess to me).
 
I feel like crap, to be honest. My voice is a wreck, I can’t breathe through my nose, and I haven’t been able to kiss my wife on the mouth since some time last week (see: sick). On top of that, I wound up crying my eyes out this morning, ostensibly because of a Thing my wife read to me on facebook (about the value of little birds – literally, like budgies and parotlets and such-like – as individuals), but actually because my brain had been running in circles around all the usual things that it runs in circles around (“Does she love me, and actually want to date me, or is she just faking it in order to get free therapy and secretarial services?” and “What if me People only want me around when I’m amiable and able to take care of them, but not when I’m an emotional wreck and need them to take care of me??”) You know. Anything and everything that can boil down to the horrible fear/belief that “They only like you ’cause you give them stuff”.
Come on, brain, you know better than to believe what your 12-year-old brother said, 20 years ago.
 
Partially because of this crappy mood, and partially because I’m all tarot-excited because of the new deck that will, some day, one day, wing its way to my door, I gave myself a grand cross reading, asking “What do I need?”
 
~*~
 
Fell out of the deck: 6 of Earth.
This is the “check in” card. It’s a card that says “got your back” and “we rely on each other”. It’s a card about security and interdependence (rather than co-dependence OR “gotta do everything myself ’cause nobody’s gonna take care of me” Independence – which is interesting given both my Querant card and my Overarching Influences cards).
 
Querant: King of Air.
This is Lord Domly Dom. The feeling that one must, must, must get EVERYTHING Right, that one has to put up an infalible front, even when one has no idea what one is doing.
 
Situation: Queen of Earth.
I love this card. She’s all about Coming Into Your Own, about being solid (as in certain, but also as in reliable). In this position, she’s all “Honey, everything is fine. I know you’re feeling shaken up right now, but look around you. Stop listening to your Jerk Brain, and remind yourself just how much you actually have. You have a lot.” She is the Mama Self from last New Moon, and I really need to listen to her, especially since my Situational Cross is the 10 of Earth – meaning that, regardless of what my Jerk Brain is telling me, I’ve got a lot of love (and a lot of food, and a lot of cash, and a lot of abundance in general) in my corner – and my Recognizable Influences card is the 9 of Earth: a reminder that what I need is ready and waiting and available, but I’ve got to use my words (and deeds) to access it. (See how that also connects to the Fell Out of the Deck card about needing to check in?)
 
Hidden Influences: 7 of Major Arcana.
Get up, wake up, it’s time to get moving! This is about maintaining focus in order to achieve your goals, and is a call to be brave, bold, and resolute (even though it’s scary – did I mention that I read Liz Gilbert’s Big Magic a couple of weeks ago? She says “listen to your curiosity, rather than your fear”, and it’s relevant advice in this context). Self-assertion (using your words – oh look), pushing through your walls and working your will.
 
Past: Page of Earth.
It’s amazing how many Earth cards are in this reading, given that I’m dealing with an emotional, rather than physical, sublect. Amazing, but not actually surprising. My body reacts super phsyically to emotional situations. I burn through calories like an SUV when I’m scared, stressed, panicking, and can’t keep warm no matter how many blankets I heap around me, no matter how hot my skin is to my wife when she curls up with me. Safe, warm, and loved are all the same thing in my body. “Enough” – all that abundance/security stuff that the suit of Earth deals with – means “loved” as well as “fed”. I can give warm-safe-loved-fed to my people really easily, and I get a lot out of it, but it is SO hard to ask for, to say out loud that I need that stuff, too.
I think my Past card is a reference to taking a chance (especially given how afraid I am of screwing it up, now that I’ve put myself out there), and it links up pretty neatly with the “follow your curiosity” stuff attached to my Hidden Influences card.
 
This brings us to the Future: 8 of Air.
This is the Guilt card (Ha! The “listen to your fears” card, look at that!). The brain weasel card that says simultaneously “I am (need) waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much for anyone to handle” (femme prolems, amirite?) and “I am never, ever, ever going be (good) enough (to be worthy of receiving what I actually need)”. Eugh. In case you were wondering, I’m totally living in those feelings right now Ick. 😦 So I pulled a Clarification Card, and got the 2 of Earth. Which, yeah… The Two cards are all “getting the hang of this” cards. Actively calling up memories of kindness and care and consistency to use as stepping stones through the mess of my nasty neurotic cycles. Remembering how to keep my feet warm from the inside out.
 
Subjective/Up-Close View: Queen of Fire.
Woohoo! I also love this card. Like the Queen of Earth, she’s a “goal” card for me. She’s “something I would like to be” (as Lenelle Moisse says). I’m surprised to see her in this position, honestly. This slot is often a “how the querant understand the situation” card and, given The Queen of Fire’s assoications with generocity and boldness, I would have expected her to turn up in the Hopes and Fears spot (although that did net me the only other fire card in the reading, so there’s that) rather than this one. That said, when I look her up, she can apparently mean “too demanding”, “pushy”, “lacking confidence” and even “jealous” (Prime poly sin! Bad Girlfriend!) when reversed, which would definitely line up with my Guilt Feelings and my most typical insecurities, even if the card I pulled was upright[1]. So maybe it’s not so shocking that she showed up in this position.
 
Objective/Take-A-Longer-View: Ace of Earth.
Uh…? Probably has to do with the Two of Earth I pulled on my Future card. Like… maybe I’m just having some growing pains, or something?
 
Hopes and Fears: Page of Fire.
Regardless of Footnote One[1], in this position, an upright card usually means a Hope, while a reversed card usually means a Fear.
I tend to take this card at its name – Playfulness – and understand it as “don’t take things so seriously” and “actually enjoy your process” (whatever that process/journey/learning-curve is) rather than constantly fearing the “inevitable” screw-up and wrecking what you’ve got like a self-fulfilling prophecy. But… apparently there is more to this card than just that (no duh, Meliad…) Stuff like: access your courage, let yourself try new things (which directly links to my Past card, as it happens) and, tellingly, Master your internal blocks, transformation immanent. Hmm…
 
Which brings us to the Outcome card: 7 of Water (reversed, so at least this is about Me and My Brain, and not anyone outside of me…).
Augh! WTF??
Yeah. This is an “unfished business” card, but it’s “unfinished” because the querant left it that way. Procrastination, dreaming without action, wanting things but not doing what’s needed to get them. But also: Letting those shitty Jerk Brain voices tell you “how things are” rather than seeing what’s really there.
I pulled a clarification card and got – ACK! – Thunderbolt! Master your internal blocks, Transformation Immanent. I said “This is scary. Can you tell me more?” and pulled another card: Phew! The King of Water. Well, at least that transformation leads somewhere good…
I looked up the 7 of Water to see what else this card might have to say and, unexpectedly, I got messages that linked to my Querant card:
 

We admire order in all its forms and want everything to be just right. The Seven of Cups provides the balance. […] Is everything too controlled and regular? Perhaps you need to let things fall apart a little. When a rigid system breaks up, there can be a tremendous release of creativity. The man on the Seven of Cups is amazed by all the options he has.

 

[…The] reversed Seven of Cups can indicate a time when you are finally breaking through a fog of confusion and illusion to focus on your chosen goal. With resolution and purpose, you are now setting your intentions and finding solutions[…]

 
that second one, I think, maybe, links up my “Moment to Moment” (2 of Earth) clarification card, my “Longer View” (Ace of Earth) and my Hopes (Page of Fire) cards somewhat. Master your mental blocks + one step at a time + even though it hurts to grow… basically.
Eugh. Okay. Fuck. I like that interpretation better than any of the others, so I’m going to go with it and hope I’m not just lying to myself.
Right.
 
Advisor: Page of Water.
Jeebus. You notice all the Page cards in this reading? “Essense of transition”. The Page cards are all about growth and change. (I’m surprised the Wheel of Fortune didn’t show up in my spread, yeek…) The Page of Water (surprise, surprise) can be about vulnerability in relation to (in relating to) others. But it also (a) reflects the Page of Fire’s call for Self-Knowledge with a call for Self-Understanding. Know yourself, but don’t be cruel to yourself, give yourself some compassion at this time. It likewise – like all the Pages, really – calls on the Querant to play, dream, and try new things. Like my Situation and Crossing cards, this one says “Honey, the door is right there. The only thing keeping you in that cage is yourself” and (like my Recognizable Influences card) tells me that I need to use my words and express my Feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelings, if I want to get what I need.
 
Over-Arching Influences: 4 of Earth.
Under-Lying Influences: 4 of Water.
I’m lumping these two together because, holy cats, two Fours?
The Four cards are (a) kind of your first “level up” card in the progression of the minor arcana, but also (b) linked to The Emperor, with self-mastery and breaking your own chains. As “level up” cards, they hook nicely into the three Pages that turned up in my reading, but also as “Emperor” echoes, they both have ties to the repeated call, in this spread, to break through my own bad habits and (mental/emotional) barriers, and stop getting in my own way (a message my cards gave me last New Moon, too).
That’s just taking the “4” part into consideration. The two cards juxtapose with each other in a really interesting way.
The Over-Arching Influences card is “The Miser”, the feeling that the Querant has to “go it alone” or is in a “me against the world, got no back-up” (compare this to the Card that Fell Out of the Deck, why doncha) situation. This is very, very much the feeling I’m dealing with right now. Like “as I’m typing this” right now.
The Under-Lying Influences card – rather than being the 4 of Fire (all call to connect with others) – is the 4 of Water.
The Four of Earth is an easy (and familiar) one for me to interpret. It basically lives in my brain. The Four of Water is more difficult.
In my deck – which is based on Buddhism (and as such tends to glorify detachment, um) – this card is a call to turn inwards and find (maybe fill?) the well of your own strength. It’s a self-reliance card, just like the 4 of Earth, but it’s coming from a space of calm and certainty rather than a place of fear and resentment. In other decks (and other interpretations), it means something much different: A call to count your blessings (as with my Situation and Crossing cards) and be aware of what’s available to you (as with my Advisor card). It can also be an indication that the Querant is sick and tired of the status quo – that it’s time to “get up off the nail”, as Amanda Palmer puts it in The Art of Asking and stop hurting yourself through your own in/actions. Sometimes it even echoes the Four of Earth, alluding to feelings of disillusionment or having been let down (“Nobody cares about me. It’s me against the world”) but… I would like to think that this isn’t what the card means in this spread, in this position, right now.
Given everything else in the reading, I’m inclined to interpret this card as “You need to walk yourself through this, and not let your Jerk Brain be your emotional boss, BUT in order to do that, you can’t just be all “go it alone”/”I don’t need anybody, anyway” (that will totally back-fire). You need to be aware of what’s really going on, what’s around you, WHO is around you to support you, and you need to be willing to do the one-step-at-a-time scary/healing work of asking for what you need, and what you want.”
Even when you think nobody’s available to support you.
Even when you think the people who say they’ve got your back are lying or, at best, offering support without knowing how badly, or how much, you need them (and will therefore disappear as soon you show them the depths of that need / how broken you are /etc).
 
~*~
That was actually a really helpful, articulate reading. Way easier to understand than a lot of readings I’ve done in the past six months.
 
Long Nights Moon is a time for reflection, and the dark days between the last sliver of a Balsamic waining moon and the first sliver of the New (meaning now) are a seriously good time to seak out, understand, and compost/transform the unhealthy/unhelpful patterns in one’s life.
This New Moon, in particular, is shifting from Sagittarius (with its sometimes-painful honesty and restlesness) into Capricorn: a sign that calls us us to (a) rededicate to the kind of learning/healing/developing that moves in circles and keeps popping up over and over again (you know, those Fucking Opportunities For Growth that we all love so much), but also to (b) “tighten the net” of support we use to hold each other up – meaning support for us as well as others, kids – and even to (c) move towards goals in small, acheivable steps… All of-which are things that the above spread aludes to quite a bit.
 
This was a good time to do this reading (whether I knew it, or not, when I shuffled those cards). It gave me what I needed, even if I knew parts of it already. (When the tl;dr version is “Honey, you are too insecure. Work on that!”, it can be a bit Thank You, Captain Obvious… But the more in-depth reading was a help. 😉 )
 
Anythign weighing on your mind right now? Any brutal truths come up in the past lunar cycle that could be explored more fully while the does her Compost Thing and the Long Nights and waxing Moon give us a boost on both getting the the roots of those things and finding ways to make changes in our lives?
 
 
TTFN,
Meliad the Birch Maiden.
 
 
[1] Although, given that this deck doesn’t do “upright” and “reversed” the way most decks seem to (reversed usually means “going on internally” rather than “involves how you related to the outside world”), so an upright position with painful indications can still happen.

Full Moon – Frost Moon Crests

The full moon is getting pretty high in the dome of the sky, veiled in clouds and still smiling. It snowed two days ago, and now everything has melted again. I still have kale (and some valient rainbow chard) in the garden and, rather than getting my ass out there with the scissors and harvesting it, I’m sitting inside whinging about how I don’t want it to go to waste.
WTF, brain.
 
I confess, I’ve been buying Self Help Books that focus on (a) asking for what you want, and (b) following your curiosity rather than your fear. My perpetual problems, right? You’d think, as a witch, I’d be better versed at changing my own conciousness so that it fell more in line with what I want but… what do I want? I want Safe, Warm, Fed, and Loved. And I have all of those things, for all that my jerk-brain is telling me that they’re all very precarious… they’re not. At least the “loved” part is really solid, I have a tonne of food stocked up, and my rent is covered for December (with a whole four days to go before it’s due!), plus nobody is trying to kill or maim me, so… I’ve got that. I’m just afraid to rock the boat, so to speak, by drawing attention to myself or asking for more than what, for the most part, is pretty basic (and yet… privilege…) stuff. Food. Shelter. Heat. A door that locks + being able to trust the people who share my home and my life. Basic, and yet so, so huge.
 
How do I ask for more than I deserve?