New Moon – Apple Moon Begins (and Waxes)

Ripening Apple – Photo by Ruth Hartnup via Wiki Free Images – A green apple, ripening towards red, hangs from its stem amid green leaves.

My altars are lit – after weeks of not making offerings in this way – and I need to make another batch or two of candles before the day is out.
There are big, dark clouds hanging low over the neighbourhood, promising more rain. My zucchini are loving it, and I’m appreciating the break in the heat.
Mr and Mrs Cardinal came by yesterday evening, along with a chickadee or two, to see if we’d left more birdseed on the window sill. We had a Palliated woodpecker stop by, and a young (and very hot – the cicadas were going hard, so you can imagine the temperature) stop by in the cedar tree for a moment in the shade and/or a moment of investigating our Cockatiel (and our plastic model crow) on the other side of the glass.
We introduced ourselves to our across-the-street neighbour, who – appropriately for the beginning of Apple Moon – invited us to harvest his apples and pears for making cider in a few weeks, so I’m excited about that.
 
It’s New Moon in Leo (or was, close to a week ago) and – go figure – I’m diving back into shadow work. Leo Season is basically Ego Season, after all, and while it can be a very King Of Wands time (and, yes, I’ve pitched myself for an expanded job description with one of my current clients AND participated in an open mic at a recent online poetry show), it can also be a point where our assumptions about Being Right need to maybe get questioned and challenged.
I’ve been Getting Messages – mostly, though not entirely, in the form of wasps and hornets landing on me, walking on me, accidentally coming into the house, and, in one case, getting trapped under my skirt, freaking out, and stinging me (can’t say I blame them) – about my own tendency towards getting venomous when freaked out about something, and I think I need to do some Work around that.
 
On a related (sort of?) note, I’m… having The Feels around hanging out with my Fetch. She’s a good kid. And I’m also like “Crap, what the heck to do with an athletic teenager??”
I pulled a card today, basically asking my Fetch “What would you like to do” and the card I got was “The World” which, in the Osho Zen deck, is depicted as a jigsaw puzzle. So I took her literally and found a website where I could do a bunch of digital jigsaw puzzles for free, and we/I did puzzles for a little while.
We’ll see if this sort of thing works in future, but I figured it was worth a shot.
 
I did a “New Moon in Leo” tarot spread, using the same deck, and what I got was:
A Place to Innovate: The Fool, Upright (The 9 of Earth Upright)
A Chance to Boost Confidence: The Emperor, Reversed (The Queen of Fire, Reversed)
A Way to Show Yourself Love: The Sun, Reversed (The 3 of Earth, Reversed)
(The cards listed in brackets are ones I pulled just to get extra information about each item)
 
What I get from this is:
A Place to Innovate: Literally ANYwhere. Just start something. “To Innovate” just means “to change up an established pattern”. Based on the “more info please” card, I could potentially read this as “Change up how you… [Rely on only yourself] / [Exercise Self-Control] / [Achieve a comfortable lifestyle]” which… hey. I said I was doing shadow work around exactly this stuff, so at least it’s confirming that I need to change up some stuff in this area.
 
A Chance to Boost Confidence: Look. Blame it on reading The Killer Wore Leather, but I almost want to read this as having something to do with dominance and my D/s relationships. The Emperor being all about Being The Boss and the Queen of Fire – in addition to being energetic, confident, dedicated, and having great sex appeal – is my personal mental idea of what an authentic, dominant femme can be (as opposed to, say, the Lord Domly Dom stereotype that I associate with the King of Air).
 
A Way to Show Yourself Love: This, at least, was easy to interpret: Acknowledge your skills and stop downplaying your contributions to things.
 
~*~
 

Flowering – Queen of Earth, Osho Zen Tarot – a woman with black and white hair, wearing a green dress and a flower crown, sits, cross-legged on a floating pink lotus. A full moon(?) rises behind her.

 
The card I drew for my Tarot Card Meditation was the Queen of Earth.
This is interesting because of how much King of Earth stuff has been showing up lately, and because of the “Place to Innovate” portion of the above tarot reading.
In some ways, at least, I believe I’m already the Queen of Earth. Note, I said “believe”. There are 100% Shadow Things in there that belie the ways in-which I’m not. I know I’m resourceful and generous, nurturing and thrifty, and I have a tonne of home-making skills – all of which are Queen of Earth Things. BUT I also deeply want to be taken care of, to not have to be thrifty and resourceful specifically because someone else is looking after that stuff for me.
So that’s something that I want to explore a little more.
 
Similarly, I find myself looking at the ways in-which the Queen and the King of this suit differ. I’m particularly thinking of how Michelle Tea (in her book, Modern Tarot) talks about them. She describes the Queen as someone who keeps her life simple and who can recognize that she’s rich in friends and skills, even if she’s not necessarily rich in cash. Whereas she describes the King as someone who’s comfortable accepting a good wage, spending money on things they value, and being rich in cash as well as friends and skills (which, itself, feels very connected to the “Know Your Worth” of Leo Season, as discussed by Liz Worth, linked above). And I find the difference she depicts – or maybe, tellingly, that I interpret from her words – shows me the various gulfs I need to bridge if I want to level myself up out of what feels a lot like a “four of pentacles” funk.
 
So, as I dig into my Suit of Pentacles / First-and-Second-Chakra shadow points, I’ll be keeping these things in mind.
 
~*~
 
Movement: Moon Salutations every night. Going for frequent walks with my wife in the evening. Occasional pushing of the tiny sail boat down to the river and back (with help, obvs). This is probably not enough movement, but it’s what I’m doing.
 
Attention: I’m paying attention to the globe zucchinis growing in my front yard. Paying attention to my compost heap, and hoping it will cook quickly and well. Getting to know my neighbours (slowly but surely). Paying attention to the weather, the humidity, the movement of the wind. Paying attention to the different birds and little critters and plants and bugs who share my yard with me.
 
Gratitude: Blueberry ice cream. Backyard BBQs. Friends who live nearby. Home-grown zucchini. Long talks with my girlfriend. Money with-which to buy 1/4 of a pig for the freezer. Reading aloud to my partners. A zillion library books (Gideon the Ninth is so good, you guys). Snuggles with my wife. Shadow-related break-throughs. Our CSA box. A freezer full of vegetables. Hard conversations (I may not like having them, but I’m grateful that they’re at least possible). Being able to drink tea with my mom and have it feel comfortable and easy. Poetry.
 
Inspiration: As is frequently the case, other femme poets + tarot cards. But, on top of that: Kinky books. My recently-deceased colleague. Bats in the park. The river. The Leonids meteor shower.
 
Creation: While I feel a little bit behind, in terms of my poetry project, I have reached the point of having (technically) enough glosas to make a full-sized manuscript. Which I think is a pretty big deal. There’s still a lot of work ahead of me, but I’m feeling confident and proud of myself for making it this far.

Asking the Earth What She Needs

The Empress – Mary El Tarot – A red-haired person in a long green dress, with a baby tied to their back, stands under a mature tree, holding a basket of fruit

 
Maybe it’s not surprising the I pulled The Empress today.
I went out in the garden to chuck a basket of toilet paper tubes into the compost, and to take pictures of the fever few – which is growing already – and the day-lilies coming up in the alley, and I sang to the misty air and the ground as I was out and about.
And I saw that the rhubarb – which I’m used to seeing a week or two from now – has already started crowning. Small enough that it probably came up with the sunrise just today. The sorrel – AKA sourdock – is just, just starting to create leaves, too, still red from their first unfurling. In the not too distant future there will, I hope, be crow garlic sprouts and dandelions coming up.
My neighbour, whose mom is an avid, and very skilled, gardener, comments that everything is coming back again.
Hallelujah.
My Lady who is the land beneath my feet is awake, awake again.
My Lady who is every green and growing thing is stretching her arms and her face towards the sun.
Hallelujah.
 
Right now, I’m burning a cone of dragon’s blood incense on my altar. I’m doing that because I don’t actually have incense charcoal and the dried mugwort I tried to use burned a liiittle too enthusiastically and turned to ash before I could even say what the offering was for.
So. Dragon’s Blood it is.
I’m adding my tiny offering to a nation-wide call for ones like it: For talking to gods and ancestors and asking that indigenous communities be protected from COVID19 through physical things like provision of actual clean drinking water right out of the tap. (Which, yes, I’m also continuing to bug my MP and the prime minister about this, because it’s an ongoing problem). Feel free to join in. If you’re like me, and are a white person, some herbs you might consider using (if you can manage to get them to light, um) are: juniper, mugwort, rosemary, lavender, mullien, mint, birch bark, thyme, and pine needles.
 
I read Liz Worth’s recent post about prophetic dreams, which talks about offerings, about letting go, and I could help thinking of my own post from five months back asking “Have I Done Right By You?”
Maybe it’s not surprising that I pulled The Empress today.
 
What is the New Normal that I’m hoping for?
I want income supports to STAY available for all (and, like, ACTUALLY for all, not just if you’ve made at least $5000 at some sort of declarable job over the past year), and for it to be $2000/month, and for it to be No Questions Asked.
I want crude oil to stay so cheap it becomes a visibly bad investment for people who only judge “bad investment” by how much money they stand to lose.
I want remote work to stay the expectation, because 200,000 cars NOT on the local road, most of the time, would do the air quality in my city (and especially right here, by the highway) a lot of good, and because it’ll mean people with disabilities and chemical sensitivities will have a much easier time getting well-paid work if from-home is a standard and expectable option.
I want clean, potable water, to come out of the tap in every house on every Reserve. (We still don’t have that – go bug your MP about it).
I want stuff like AirBnB to basically be out of business and the market to suddenly have a LOT more housing availability and a LOT more housing aforadability. (I would like to know more about housing co-ops, btw).
I want Actually Helping Each Other Out – like “I’m going to the store, do you need anything” – to be something we ask out neighbours.
I want remote access and online stuff – like concerts and meditation classes and conferences – to be a thing that sticks around.
I want train tickets to be cheap as hell so that inter-city travel, once it’s a thing again, can be affordable without it having to happen on an airplane.
I want strategic downtown streets to be closed to cars so that pedestrians can maintain appropriate social distance and, when we don’t have to do that anymore, I want those streets to stay pedestrians-only or, since they’d likely be residential streets, “residential traffic accepted” at worst.
 

Temperance, The Page of Swords, The Three of Pentacles, and The Six of Wands – Mary El Deck

 
I did a reading, as I sometimes do, shuffling my deck and checking in with the ground, taking the jumpers for answers.
Here’s what I got:
 
Anything you want? – Temperance
I mean, I suppose this is obvious. Balance. Taking care with my actions. Spring Equinox, for that matter. Oliver Pickle, in She Is Sitting in the Night refers to this card as one that “calls for self-control, not through socially internalized suppression and compartmentalization, but through appropriate and thoughtful responses to all situations. It asks for compromise, harmony, and moderation”. So, yes. That.
 
Anything you need? – The Page of Swords
She’s nothing if not literal. The Page of Swords is – according to the Wildwood tarot – situated as Spring Equinox starts moving towards Beltane. So right where we are now. She needs to do what she needs to do, moving towards that fullness, that leafing and growing, that’s already started and can’t, won’t be stopped. More metaphorically this is a card about diligence, determination, and doing the Work. This, too, is the crowning of all that new life. The rhubarb and the crow garlic, the day lilies and the tulips, pushing their spears through the topsoil. The leaves unfurling on the sorrel, the ferevew few, the creeping charlie, the grass. All of it. But it’s also me, paying attention, tending to the soil. It’s my wife turning the compost. It’s bread and milk offerings and remembering to water the plants.
 
Anything else you want me to know? – The Three of Pentacles with a side order of The Six of Wands
Teamwork, co-conspiring, getting creative with what you’ve got, working together, putting your labour towards something meaningful… with a side order of the warmth of generosity.
Work together. With Her, with each other, and there will be more than enough for all.
 
 
Cheers,
Meliad the Birch Maiden.

Tarot Reading for Spring Equinox 2020

Happy Spring Equinox?
I’m enjoying watching the backyard wildlife doing their thing in the great outdoors, but I’m avoiding going outside these days, just like the rest of you.
I’ve got a (tiny) tincture of juniper and rosehips started in the cupboard and am really, REALLY glad I chopped and froze some raw ginger root much, much earlier this past winter. I have vinegar in a spritzy bottle for Cleaning All The Surfaces. I have a lot of made-it-yesterday yoghurt in my fridge, and two weeks (if I make it stretch) of milk in there, too.
Which is a good thing, because our social distancing practices are getting heavier. My wife, bless her, risked going to the laundromat to do laundry earlier today. So we have clean socks and clean linens for the next few weeks, too, which is a relief, but I’m glad she was alone in the laundromat.
 
I’ve been cleaning things, washing dishes, sweeping up, and having random short bursts of anxiety-crying (just me? Okay). And doing a Spring Equinox tarot reading, like you do.
 
You guys.
Um. It was surprisingly positive?
Which is something, at least?
 
~*~
 

 
Situation: The Eight of Fire
Rise for the higher cause, be your best self, work for mutual aid (Next World). The warmth of shared generosity and the celebration of endurance and survival (Wildwood). This is a card of action. A card of getting results. A card of doing the hard thing even though you’re so, so tired.
 
Crossed By: The World
Look, tbh, I’m inclined to take this one literally? Let’s take this one literally. (Although I will point out that this card is associated with coming together, getting involved, and also with counting your blessings, so there’s that, too).
 
Past: The Lovers
This is one of the cards in this reading that I wasn’t sure how to interpret. One of the less obvious meanings of it has to do with determining your values – being true to yourself, questioning what you’ve been taught, finding out what you really care about. In the context of this reading, and in this position, I’m inclined to read it that way.
 
Future: The Knight of Air
This card can mean impromptu generosity (She is Sitting in the Night), and rash, damn-the-consequences decisions. It can mean transformative rage (Next World). It’s a card of decisiveness, sometimes of heroism.
When I first looked at it, especially with a name like “The Escape Plan” and especially across from The Lovers, as it is in this reading, all I could think was “But I don’t want to run away. I don’t want to abandon my loves”.
But I don’t think that’s what it means.
I think it’s calling on me – maybe on all of us – to act decisively based on those values we’ve already figured out we have.
 
Visible Influences: The Queen of Water
Love. Kindness. Patience. Receptivity. Empathy. Grace in the face of stress. Joy in the face of fear.
 
Hidden Influences: The Queen of Air
Facing up to what’s really going on. Boundaries and honesty. But also grief, scarcity, and change.
 
 

 
Subjective / Up Close View: The Nine of Earth
This is a card about self-sufficiency. But it carries with it a recognition of community support. “We have enough to look after ourselves” but also “We have enough to share” AND “We have people who will help US if we need it”. This is a card that says “feel good about what you have”, that recognizes the sanctuary you’ve made for yourself, and that calls you to be generous where you can.
 
Objective / Broader View: The Knight of Water
Open-hearted and creative. I almost want to read this as “be aware of the parts of this situation that aren’t all doom, gloom, and survival”. Reach out to the people you care about. Listen to each other. Share things emotionally. Make art. Make connection. Make ritual. Make magic. Make something beautiful and true even when everything’s falling apart.
 
 

 
Hopes/Fears: Judgement (Reversed)
This is one of the few places where I read a Reversed card as meaning something specific. Upright, in this position, means “hope”. But Reversed? What am I afraid of?
Oh, y’know. Everything.
I’m afraid of discovering I’m Actually A Bad Person.
That, when it comes to making hard choices, I’ll desperately long for the easy road.
This is a card about seeing through the illusions/lies/BS. About being the thing that’s burning, letting go of all the old habits, coping mechanisms, expectations, assumptions and then moving forward.
I’m afraid of the burning, and I’m afraid of what comes after.
 
Outcome: Ace of Air
Wanting what’s fair. Doing what’s right. Resolving the situation. Overcoming adversity.
 
 

 
Guidance/Context Card: Ten of Earth
Over-Arching Themes: Three of Earth
Underlying Themes: Ace of Fire
As I’ve gotten more practice at reading this stuff, I’ve realized that – for me, at least – these three cards together tend to provide a TL;DR of the whole spread.
This is about safety, security, and HOME.
Work together. (Learn how to rest, not how to quit). Every contribution matters, every contribution counts.
Be prepared to learn new skills, adapt to a changing environment, and focus on the task at hand. Make it happen. This is the beginning of something new.

New Year New You 2018 (2019) – Week Fourteen: Spiritual Consultation

I’m (once again) doing Miss Sugar’s New Year New You Experiment in Radical Magical Transformation because I find it’s a really good way to kick my own ass into getting things done. It’s a good mix of practical, magical, and thought-based exercises to help accomplish specific and significant change in your own life. If it’s relevant to your interests, give it a try!
 
Instructions: “Now would be a good time to check in with your personal Powers That Be (PTB) about your goals“.
 

Wild Unknown Tarot – Temperance – A blue heron + the mingling of water and fire against a rainbow background

 
Tarot Cards: I picked Temperance for this one, because of how it relates to both “union of opposites” endeavors and, more broadly, to cooperation and compromise.
 
See, the whole “check in with your deities (etc)” prompt… I took a “radiomancy” approach to my tarot cards today and just… shuffled the deck until something fell out.
What fell out was this:
 

Empress crossed with the King of Air. Related Influences: Seven of Air vs Seven of Fire.

 
The Empress (which is what my whole project is about) crossed with – or is that brought about through? – the King of Air. The two other cards – both sevens, which means they relate to the Chariot and its “Get Up / Wake Up, and GO” energy – read as “obstacles” vs “helpers” or a case of “what do I need to let go of” vs “what do I need to act on/with”. Influences to be taken into account, if you will.
 
As far as messages from My Ladies go? This is… very relevant, nothing unusual, and… basically confirming stuff I’m aware of already? Unless I’m missing something?
The diametrically opposed sevens: The seven of air vs the seven of fire. Shame & avoidance vs Courage & conviction.
This has been my problem for ever. I push towards the thing, I get stuck, I regress, I push further, wash, rinse, repeat. Part of me reads this as just, like, “The struggle is real” with a side order of “Also, healing works in spirals and is not in any way linear, and there’s going to be points where you’re making a lot of progress very fast and there’s going to be points where you’re seriously feeling stuck and like nothing is changing”.
But, with this specific project in mind, I can also read it as the overthinking stuckness and “freezing” that I experience literally butting heads with the vitality and bravery that it’s going to take to navigate those Stuck/Lost feelings.
 
The one card I’m not sure what to make of is the King of Swords.
This card could be a reference to my tendency to over-think things and to how researching The Thing is not the same as doing it. But – while I don’t usually read upright cards like this – the fact that the King of Swords is upright suggests that maybe this is something about, well, what my wife called “Cognitive Behavioural Witchcraft”. The way I use magic and ritual to kind of reroute my neural pathways and get myself to, hopefully, stop believing the old tapes and, hopefully, stop making the same set of mistakes.
 
Heh. There’s this meme that’s going around right now:
 

 
And… it’s not inaccurate. Sometimes my readings look more like “Yep… that is definitely an accurate description of my situation…” rather than “Wow! That’s some useful advice as to next steps to get where I’m going!”
That said, I’m choosing to interpret this as a “Yes, keep using your Very Smart Brain and your magical skills to unblock your sexual blocks and further develop your shame resilience! It’s going in fits and starts, but it’s working!”
With any luck, I’ll be correct in this.
 
 
Cheers,
Meliad the Birch Maiden.

The Naked Heart Challenge – Full Moon in Aries Spread (a few days late)

So I was browsing through instagram (like you do) and I found this spread, which is part of The Naked Heart Challenge. Not actually planning to take part in this challenge (seeing as it’s on Day 24 already and, for all I know, is all of a month long) BUT I like the look of this one, so I decided to throw it and see what turned up. Check in with the Internal Ant Farm, so to speak.
 

Tarot of the Silicon Dawn:
Top Left – 7 of Water.
Top Right – 3 of Water.
Bottom Left – 3 of Earth.
Bottom Right – 5 of Earth.
Center – The Fool v.N. + 99 of Air

 
Readers, all four of those outer cards jumped from the deck all at once.
I drew the two in the center as a two-card-pull on purpose. (See below).
 
Where do I need to relax? – Seven of Water
Wanting in all directions, questioning whether what I’m wanting is wishful thinking (…projecting) and/or whether it’s okay/realistic to want what I want.
I’m inclined to take this as a big “Chill out” (and or “Stop over-thinking it”) from the Universe and my People. Like, yes, That One Crush isn’t into you and that’s not gonna change, but the friend zone is actually pretty great, so stop worrying about it. Like, yes, you’re about to try a new type of D/s play and you’re kind of freaking about the ethics of it (Oh, hey, just like you freaked over doing SM when you started out, or when you first got your Kitchen Ghost… does this sound familiar?), but your scene partner is totally down and offering you a lot of reassurance and full disclosure, and maybe you should stop worrying about it and trust her a little? Maybe stop making decisions based on the assumption that you have to know all the answers already.
 
Where do I need to take action? – Three of Water
Polyamoury card! (At least in my case). Joy. Celebration. Social interactions. Cultivating (and participating in) community/ies. Doing what makes me happy.
Maybe this is a(nother) push for me to get my Date on. Maybe it’s a reminder that poetry shows and kink events, queer get-togethers and group rituals and productivity parties with fellow writers are important because they both feed my soul and refill my creative well, so I need to make sure that I take part in them on the regular.
 
Where do I need to retreat? – Three of Earth
Teamwork. Planning.
This can just as easily be read to mean “back off” rather than (or in addition to) “retreat”, and can be a card about having appropriate boundaries at/around work (whether “work” is paid work or not). Taking on responsibilities that aren’t mine, that are more than I can carry, or that might go unacknowledged.
There’s some cross-over here wrt the feelings stuff in the upper half of this spread, but I think it’s mostly about taking a step back from the “muddy middle” when friend approach me to ask about work my wife can do, or refraining from stepping in to micro manage some other adult’s allergies, accommodations, or whatever else it is that they can really take care of on their own.
 
Where do I need to charge ahead/through? – Five of Earth
Being an outsider. Feeling unwelcome.
While I used the Silicon Dawn deck for this spread, my most familiar version of the Five of Earth is the one from the Osho Zen deck, which depicts a little kid looking longingly through a locked gate, without realizing that the chain can just be unwound, that they can just slip between the bars if they want to.
The is an earth card, so it means material security, stability, and worthiness/entitlement around physical/financial/bodily things. This is kind of a “right in the feels” card for me right now. The teeter-totter of who financially supports whom at our house is shifting again which, on the one hand, is a huge relief, but on the other is bringing to light (again) all the weird “unworthy of care” feelings that I’m carrying around with me that, if they can’t splort out in one area, find somewhere else to rear their ugly heads. I think this card is a reminder that, rather than continuing to believe what I know isn’t true (that my wife will resent me, leave me, or both if I don’t do Everything myself – uh… see above, re: Three of Earth…), why not just slip through that gate and let your partner be a partner now that she’s able to again.
 
Where Should I Focus My Fiery Energy? – The (Fiery, how appropriate) Fool version N AND the Ninty-Nine of Air.
This Fool, in this deck, is the one who eventually morphs into Aleph Yin November (The Fool Who Flies) . The other card – another one of the Silicon Dawn’s bonus weirdo cards – stands for over-reaction, for living in the shadow of Certain Doooooooooooom.
This is why I drew two cards. One for what I should focus that fiery energy on, yes, and one to show me what’s standing in my way.
Focus my energy on becoming my biggest, best, most integrated self. (Get your Empress Project back in gear, basically).
Be aware that my own fear of being Too Visible (and all the nasty, anti-femme, anti-women stuff that can be leveled at one when one does that under Patriarchy) is what’s convincing me to stay small, stay “safe”, avoid the certain dooooooom of being and expecting Too Much.
 
Well.
Alright then.
 
 
TTFN,
Meliad the Birch Maiden.

Summer Solstice 2018 – Elemental Tarot Spread

Happy Solstice All!
 

Left – Potato blossoms.
Right – Buttercup squash blossoms.

 
My zucchini, cucumbers, and even buttercup squash are blooming! So are my tomatoes and snow peas and fava beans. So are my mustard and radishes, which means I need to regularly give them a haircut while I continue to harvest them as greens! (Don’t worry, I’m letting the radishes go to seed so they can continue to self-seed around the yard).
I set up my cucumber trellis the other day, and it hasn’t yet fallen over, so I’m counting that as a win.
Praying for LOTS of squash – cucumbers, buttercups, butternuts, and zucchini – this year. Prolific, fruitful plants and low-to-no squirrel/rodent/critter damage please. ❤
 
Summer Solstice – I did a "tell me about right now / where do I go from here" question using the Four Elements Spread from Little Red Tarot's Alternative Tarot Course and the Next World tarot deck, and here’s what I got:
 
Me Right Now: Arsenal (The Four of Pentacles)
Earth: The Fool
Water: The Team (Three of Pentacles)
Air: Temperance
Fire: The Empress
 
Me, Right Now – Where I’m at, what my situation is: Arsenal: I’ve long understood the 4 of Earth to be a card about tenuous shelter. Being afraid that nobody will have your back, being just barely able to make ends meet, having a roof over your head… for now. And part of me is feeling this. Like every summer, this is already a summer of hustling. Last year, I worked for part-time jobs at the same time. This year I’m technically working three, although one of them really only amounts to an hour/week, so I’m not sure it counts. I checked my bank balance earlier today, and it looks like I’ll have the rent in the bank before the month turns over (Hurrah! And also Thank You Gods and Ancestors and also the receptionist who frequently takes time off AND the various artists who hire me frequently because they know modeling is my main income source. Every bit helps!) AND, based on gigs already booked for July, I’ll be able to make August’s rent as well. And knowing that, fairly confidently, in advance is a BIG fucking deal.
So seeing this card as my “Me, right now” position is… not wrong.
But the Four of Earth is also Virginia Woolf’s “Room of One’s Own” to create in. It’s the home as sanctuary (both holy place and place of rest and safety) that Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha writes about so frequently. It’s a reminder of what I’m aiming for, of what makes me happiest.
 
Earth – The material, financial, bodily. Security and abundance (or it’s absense/unsteadiness): The Fool: When I drew this card, I laughed. The fool is someone who is going in a direction where they don’t know what the outcome is going to be. In the write-up for this deck specifically, Cristy C Road says that this particular Fool made the decision to walk away from the security of following the status quo, in favour of something riskier but truer to themself.
I look at this and go, “Okay, kind of?”
I told my wife that I was thinking I needed to find a one-year full time gig – just because it might be easier to find than the part-time permanent office work I’ve been looking for as an anchor income – and she got really quiet on the phone. She told me later that the thought of it make her really sad.
Because here we are, two self-employed people working in art/isan fields, trying to make a go of this. And we’re not quite making it yet. The instability of it is scary. The work is fulfilling and I’m good at it, and I don’t want to give it up.
The Fool is about taking risks, “following your bliss”, trusting the process, and doing the “foolish” thing that goes against conventional wisdom.
Okay. But, hoy, I hope it pays off in the end. O.O
 
Water – The artistic, emotive, spiritual stuff. The heart stuff. The feelings you have about your feelings: The Team: The three of Earth is a card about teamwork, but it’s also a card about making sure your work actually gets recognized. Seeing this card in the “Feelings” position is, like… It’s a combination of “Be aware that the stories you tell yourself about how your feelings (and wants, and needs) don’t matter and will never be prioritized are, y’know, bullshit. Saying what you want/need/feel is RISKY – or at least feels that way – but it’s necessary and you will be happier, by and large, if you actually do it” and “Pay attention to how much social and emtional maintenance/support work you’re doing in your various interpersonal relationships and don’t over-offer, or otherwise do all the work or (let yourself) get taking advantage of”.
 
Air – Mind, thinky thoughts, morality and values, decision-making stuff. Where’s your head at: Temperance: I mostly know this card as one about balance. But I find it interesting to see the Cristy writes her own interpretation of Temperance as being about both (a) self-care that comes with personal maturity and a willingness to listen to what’s needed, but also (b) self-forgiveness.
I think this is how I want to read this card in this position. Forgive myself my past mistakes. Forgive myself the wrongs I’ve done, or thought, and strive to keep making myself better every day. Forgive myself my failures and give myself permission to learn from them and to try again, and then again, and then again. Don’t let (don’t keep letting) my brain weasels and their stories get the better of me.
 
Fire – Drive, passion, Will, and where you’re putting your energy: The Empress: I was pretty happy to see The Empress in this position, because I am putting my energy there. But it’s also Midsummer, and I’m putting my energy into my garden as well as my art. I want to tie this card to the “where you are right now” of the Four of Pentacles, because the Empress asks: Are you treating Home Maintenance as a chore you have to slog through in order to Be A Grown Up, or are you treating it as a series of little rituals that make the everyday holy? I’m reading this as a call to (continue to) connect with sensuality, artistry, and embodied spirituality going forward. Because who doesn’t want that? 🙂
 
So there I have it. A weather report and some suggestions for where to aim next (or keep aiming – the FeelingsWitch over at Tiny Lantern Tarot says that healing works on its own timeline and tends to happen in spirals not straight lines, and… they aren’t wrong).
 
I’m off to wash dishes, tidy surfaces, and harvest rhubarb for Midsummer Pie.
 
 
TTFN,
Meliad the Birch Maiden.

New Moon – Berry Moon Begins

There are strawberries juuuuuuuust starting to ripen in my neighbour’s garden. There are service-berries juuuuuuuust starting to ripen on the trees around my neighbourhood.
There are no actual local berries (unless someone’s got super-early haskaps that I don’t know about) that are ripe just yet BUT by the time this moon waxes to full, there’s gonna be. So we’re calling this one berry moon.
I live in hope.
(Hahaaaaaa… I’ll get to that in a second).
 
So! The new moon’s in Gemini. Venus is (for the moment) in Leo. Summer Solstice is only a week away! We’ve been having thunder showers, muggy days, and kind of weirdly chilly evenings, this week.
I had a rotten day yesterday, and a good day the day before, and it’s been a reminder that accomplishing things makes me feel better about myself. Buying groceries and baking All The Things and harvesting the garden and doing a load of laundry makes me feel better about myself. Writing a poem makes me feel better about myself.
I have no idea how much of this is due to the whole capitalist notion that our value lies in what we produce or how much money we have, versus how much of this is due to the reality that moving around, tending things, and creating things, actually ARE good for me.
It’s probably a bit of both.
 
Beth, over at Little Red Tarot, talks about how Gemini (my rising sign, as it happens) is the sign of both/and. This new moon is a good time to write up a manifesto about personal integration (a bit like what Ms Sugar talks about when she talks about Black Swans).
She suggested a Gemini New Moon tarot spread on this subject, and I went ahead and did it.
Element of Self 1 (a theme/undercurrent in your life): Ace of Swords
Element of Self 2 (a different theme/undercurrent in your life): Five of Swords
What Unifies These Elements: Knight of Cups
How Can This Integration Be Expressed: Knight of Pentacles
 
The Ace of Swords is a mental multi-tool (literally, if you’re Cristy C Road). It’s a card of thinking things through, overcoming adversity, using your head. It’s a card of honesty, of seeing through illusions, doing what’s right and wanting what’s fair. It’s a card of communication, clarity, and self-awareness.
 
The Five of Swords, on the other hand, is a card of frustration, black-and-white thinking, and zero-sum games. In the Osho Zen deck, this card is called “comparison”, and it’s about… keeping your eyes on your own paper, striving for personal bests rather than worrying about being better (or not) than someone else. In the Next World tarot, however, this card is called “survival”, and it points to the way that people in Bad Situations will do unethical things in order to get what they need.
 
It’s weird to see the unifying theme of these two air cards be presented as the Knight of Cups. I mean, yes, this particular knight can succumb to the uglier side of Comparison through feelings of jealousy, insecurity, and inadequacy, and can also work the feelings side of self-awareness, seeking the Why of things, striving for self-improvement and understanding. So maybe it’s not that weird.
If my “Black Swan” is a combination of my best (Ace of Swords) and worst (Five of Swords) selves, than the way to be that fullest, truest self, is by being the Knight of Cups. (Ha… The artsy poet who wears her heart on her sleeve and likes pretty things and romance. Oh, hai…)
 
BUT… How do I express said Knight of Cups? Apparently by behaving like the Knight of Pentacles.
I think… Look, I tend to tie the Earth and Water suits together pretty closely. Partly because they’re both inward-focused elements – intimate & introverted rather than exhibitionist? In-so-far as those things can be thought of as having no overlap, which isn’t really the case – and partly because they’re both creative elements. But mainly because emotional stability and material stability are so tied up with each other.
However I think this reading is saying that the way to Be Your Black Swan without being, say, massively self-destructive or making a lot of the same mistakes over and over again, is to balance it out.
So, YES, be the knight of cups.
But balance the dreamy sentimentality and big-picture creative vision of Water with both the prudence and the step-by-step diligence of Earth.
 
The folks over at Hoodwitch tell me to “[Y]ou can knock it out of the park, but you have to remember what you came here for,” and I think that relates to this spread, and the integration of my best and worst Air characteristics through the art and heart of Water. Remember what I came here for, and then actually get it done.
 
Actually, on a related note, Chani’s Affirmation Horoscope this week (Scorpio) talks about the importance of maintaining and strengthening connections with collaborators, with people who support and encourage your best self, your most courageous self, and about noticing and figuring out the (internal and external) Stuff that gets in your way when you push to put yourself, your creativity, your Most You You, out there.
 
This is all kind of relevant (“kind of”), right now. I’m still job-searching. Which… if ever there was a process designed to tell you over and over that you’re worthless and nobody wants you? It’s trying to figure out how to word your extensive resume in a way that will let you look “good enough” to someone who wants professional experience in exchange for an entry-level wage, so that they will maybe deign to call you back. It’s super frustrating, and very scary at the same time. Because I feel like I have to be either/or, rather than both/and.
I want to use this new moon Both/And energy to help me with my frankly threadbare income quilt in a way that doesn’t feel like I’m coming from a place of scarcity or desperation.
 
The card I pulled for my Tarot Card Meditation was the Seven of Earth from the Silicon Dawn deck[1].
 

Tarot of the Silicon Dawn
Seven of Wands (which in this deck means the 7 of EARTH)
A small, hooded figure (who might be a Jawa), holding two walking sticks, stands in the doorway of a crumbling brick building. There are five branches lying on the ground in front of the door.

 
This particular seven of earth, with its crumbling building and cryptic, stick-based messaging system… is kind of creepy, tbh. Like the Collective Tarot’s seven of bones, which is just a bunch of teeth falling everywhere, a reference, I think, to that dream where your teeth crumble and fall out of your head, to tell you that everything is fucked and you can’t handle it.
Other interpretations are a lot more hopeful (haaaaaaaaaaaaa). Like the Next World image of an old lady selling home-beaded jewelry by the side of the road, labeled “Vision” (and Saturn in Taurus); or the Osho Zen version, which features a calm-looking, heavily pregnant person and a bunch of moon phases, and is called “Patience”. The Wildwood seven of earth is even called “Healing” and carries notes of divine intervention.
 
So what does this mean?
In a long-ago post, I talked about how the sevens are all linked to both hope and action, but also that this seven in particular touches on the fact that things take time.
 
I feel like I’m running out of time.
It’s an awful feeling.
It took ten years for me to build a modeling career. A career that I’m proud of and find fulfilling and that I actually enjoy. And I feel like I’m going to have to give it up, in order to take on work that pays less, wastes my time, depletes my creative energy, and makes me feel physically and emotionally like crap.
And I don’t want that to be how this goes.
 
So. Talking to my lovely wife over the phone, I told her about pulling this card, and what I said was: You may have to re-evaluate some stuff and make some choices. But don’t be hasty about it. You are going to start seeing results, the work you’ve been diligently putting in WILL start paying off. Just be aware that it takes a little while.
That it takes the heart-on-your-sleeve hope (the willingness to take risks and be vulnerable) of the Knight of Cups combined with the methodical action (like composition, editing, cold-calling, querying, and sending out submissions) of the Knight of Pentacles to get the results you want.
 
Summer Solstice is a week away. The sun – and all the things it metaphorically touches on – is at its biggest and boldest. It’s the point when all those seeds you carefully planted start to (literally or metaphorically) bear fruit.
While it’s hard to hold onto hope, especially when it feels like most of my seeds have germinated and then withered before they could really get established, I’m still keeping my fingers crossed for patience, for healing, for the chance to decode some secret, stick-based message, and get where I need to be going.
 
I’m modeling for a photography class in three hours.
I’m going to methodically get myself ready, put together a couple of looks for people to take photos of, do my hair and makeup (qua kosmesis), and then go Be Art for an evening.
And tomorrow?
Tomorrow I’ll light my altars and write some motherfucking poetry.
 
 
~*~
 
Movement: Has mostly been walking, this past couple of weeks. Yes, there’s also been gardening, but mostly my movement has been based around getting from place to place.
 
Attention: The wildlife in my back yard has multiplied. Babies every damn where. They are cute and also mildly worrying and, as such, are pulling a lot of my attention.
 
Gratitude: Grateful for the rain. For the zucchini plants starting to flower. For bread that rises. For rhubarb that grows in determined profusion. For ice cream being on mark-down. For yoghurt I can make from scratch. For a friend who shipped me cute and fancy clothes (and makeup and perfume, and the tiniest coach bag ever) from an entirely different country, just to help me out and make me smile. For $5 bags of un-dyed cotton crochet thread. For time to experiment. For old, beloved books. For not having to get up at 6am, three days a week (silver lining, right?) and for modeling coordinators who hire me because they know I need the work, and because I was brave enough to ask for it. For long baths. For friends who trust me. For a wife who thinks I’m beautiful and holds onto me all night long.
 
Inspiration: The deep, deep blue of a nearly cloudless sky, late last night when I walked home from my modeling gig, after an evening that was all thunder and rain. The bright gleam of those distant stars. The way the bee-balm and bleeding hearts come back, year after year, even in thin, rocky soil.
 
Creation: Urgh. I made a rhubarb-berry coffee cake and rhubarb muffins this past week. I also wrote one (1) poem. It’s okay. But more to come, right? More to come! 😀
 
 
TTFN,
Meliad the Birch Maiden.
 
 
[1] So, when people design tarot decks, they often rename the suits. The suit of “earth stuff” (security, abundance, material things, bodies & embodiment, physicality, cash, housing, food, legacies, room-mates, relatives, etc), for example, which is traditionally called “pentacles” has been renamed a bunch of other things. Rainbows. Bones. Stones. Lots of things. In the case of the Silicon Dawn deck, from-which I drew the above card, the suit of “Earth Stuff” has been renamed “wands”. Which is annoying, sure, but not the end of the world. So I’m going with it.

Full Moon – Berry/Rose Moon Crests

Hey kittens,
 
So it’s been a while.
Can I tell you I’ve been feeling “distracted” for years? Like, very briefly, before we moved into our lovely new house (back in September 2014), I felt like I kind of had a handle on things, and I’ve been feeling like I’m playing Catch-Up ever since? I don’t know where this feeling is coming from. I mean, probably? Probably it’s a mix of scrabbling for money and the decrease in “free” time (and brain space) that comes with that.
Or maybe it’s something else.
I don’t know.
 
What I DO know is that my wife and I went on a Laundry Date today (yes, we have a washer and dryer, courtesy of a generous couple of friends; no, we haven’t re-arranged our own – somewhat-mousey, ugh – basement so that we can carry them downstairs and hook them up) chez the Laundromat.
We went for a motorcycle ride the other day. Can I tell you how amazing it is to have a vehicle again? Evne one that won’t keep you warm and dry, it still gets us to work in 15 minutes and lets us go away for the odd weekend, which is AMAZING.
 
I put in another in-ground garden bed yesterday. Planted rescue-cucumbers (discounted to $0.54 at the Loblaws, and probably not getting watered anymore) and a rescue zucchini, plus transplanted a few cucuberits (one cucumber, two… probably pumpkins? Not sure…) into the same bed and sprinkled bone meal around all of them.
I can’t say I’m super-hopeful about any of them taking off. That family doesn’t like having its roots disturbed, plus the super-market starts had been neglected for a while and it’s not like my yard is super-amazing in terms of soil nutrients. Mostly what grows in the ground is (a) self-seeded mustard greens, (b) dandelions, (c) cats’ ears, (d) yarrow, and (e) creeping charlie. Stuff that feeds lightly and/or has hella tap-roots. But, frankly, I have fertilizer (well, bone and blood meal) and I’m not afraid to use it.
 
On the more more hopeful end of things, I’ve pulled out most of the bolted mustard and radishes (few of which ever developed big, juicy roots, ’cause apparently they don’t like being transplanted either) and my chard now has a LOT more space. I’m hoping that between the additional breathing room and the on-going heavy rains (and sunshine, every now and then!), I will get myself some very healthy chard and kale… right up until November. Fingers crossed!
Likewise:
I seem to have one jalapeno pepper (so far), one eggplant (so far), three beefsteak tomatoes, one roma tomato, and a TONNE of cherry tomatoes slowly developing as actual fruit. I am hopeful that things will continue in this vein! 😀
We are continuing to get LOTS of herbs (sage, cilantro, apple mint, winter savoury, and garlic scapes, all of which I’m harvesting. The lemon balm and the peppermint seem to be doing nicely as well, but I won’t be harvesting them (much) this year, so that they can get well-established). The French Sorrel seems to be doing nicely, too, though I would still like to get some Leaf Sorrel (MUCH bigger leaves) added to the mix.
 
I harvested raspberries from the alley this morning! I still haven’t gone out to pick service berries. I honestly don’t know if I will. Part of me wants to, and part of me is all “Meh. I haven’t actually used up the ones from last year yet…” so… not sure. But if I do, I need to do it THIS WEEK or I’m out of luck.
The cherries look like lipstick trees! (This is such a great time of year).
 
 
My tracking of Full Moon Energy Weird is… not currently registering a whole lot? So we’ll see what this looks like when mapped over multiple months.
 
So, here’s a thing I’ve started to notice. I do a “spare cards” pull at the end of every tarot spread. Doesn’t matter what lay-out I’m doing, I pull an “Advisor” card (top of deck), plus an “over-arching influences” (top of deck), and an “under-lying influences” (bottom of deck) card to go with it.
What I’m noticing is that these cards tend to provide the jist of the answer I’m asking for. Like, the entire rest of the reading boils down to detail-work, but the answer is in those three cards.
Like, last months (just barely posted) Full Moon post included a very short tarot reading, and the “context cards” made more sense than the actual (two cards only) spread.
Likewise, I recently did a (much larger, grand cross) reading about Dealing With Money Feels, and the answer was so clearly written in those last three cards. Sure, the Queen of Earth fell out of the deck (relevant…), but here was the last little bit:
 
Advisor: The Emperor
Overarching/Underlying: The Guardian (15 MA) / 10 of Earth (“Home”)
 
Sure, the Emperor CAN mean “dealing with The Man”, it can mean Patriarchy. It can mean pre-established and disempowering rules and laws (which always have to do with power structures, not with What Is Right).
But the Emperor (the Green Man, The Code), is also: Structure, getting organized, bringing order our of chaos, recognizing one’s own authority. Taking control of your own life, getting your ducks in a row. Being in a position of strength. Being your own boss. Breaking the chains that held you and going in a way that is good for YOU to go. Setting a direction. Bringing security and comfort. Sticking to a plan. It can mean “skills, confidence, competence. Al the stuff that the Three of Stones asks you to recognize in yourself and expect to be valued. Being able to talk the talk of the walk you’re already walking. It can mean self-discipline. It can mean leadership and taking the initiative.
The Emperor has good boundaries, and a willingness to act, to dare, but also the pacing to get stuff done in an orderly and sustainable fashion.
(Seriously. I was going to search “Emperor” on Little Red Tarot, and Beth had JUST posted a new post on exactly what I needed!)
 
My overarching and underlying cards?
Home – the ten of earth – all that material abundance, solid foundations, financial stability, all that stuff in “Made It Home”, in “We Are The World”, a house where all the windows open, with fruit trees, berry bushes, greens and nightshades and cucuburits, growing lavish in the yard, a kitchen overflowing with good food for everyone who comes and out of my always-open door, no fear of the rent not being payable, a home-base to come back to, to anchor me (us), no matter where we go on our adventures. An absolute certainty that we have, and will always have, enough to share on top of having enough “just in case” and enough for ourselves.
Crossed with? The Devil. With bindweed, with conditioning, with the boogy-man that stands in the way of really examining all the Stuff that lurks in my personal underworld. Call to katabasis, to the digging deep (and surfacing) in all my dirty secrets about wealth, worth, value, and morality.
 
 
Well. Okay, then. O.O
 
Anyway, onwards.
 
 
~*~
 
Motion: Lots of walking, this past week, as I was temping close to home. Also lots of bending and digging in the garden.
 
Attention: Watching the clouds, waiting for (and receiving) rain, rain, and more rain. Over-thinking everything (alas, but there it is), and trying to figure out how to stop.
 
Gratitude: Long rides in the country under clear skies. Working farms. My wife loving me. The friend who gave me a lift home on Friday, when it was pouring rain. Greens (and snow peas! and more on the way!) from the garden.
 
Inspiration: Big, beautiful moon last night. All the flowers blooming like crazy.
 
Creation: Chasing the first threads of a new (ish) story. No idea if it will go anywhere, but trying to catch hold anyway. Wrote a poem (about Scorpios and Feelings and the High Priestess tarot card) the other day. Message is “finish your damn book”, and no clue how to get there, but: scribble, scribble, ugh, scribble, scribble. So here we go…

Full Moon – Flower Moon Crests (Finally Hitting POST on a Mo(o)nth-Old Entry…)

Wrote this, well, a couple of weeks ago, but only posting it now:
 
~*~
 
It’s Full Moon in Sagittarius, folks!
The sage bloomed the day of the Full Moon (which was Friday). As such, it will come as a surprise to nobody that sage (along with – apparently – peonies & tomatoes plus basil, borage, saffron, & chervile) is one of Sagittarius’ associated plants.
 

Five sprigs of sage ft tall, blue flower-spikes.

 
I’ve been having PMS-type symptoms/experiences all week. Tripping, dropping things, and otherwise ending up with unexplainable bruises, craving ALL the chocolate all the time, and being neck-deep and deeper in my Feeeeelings. Usually(?) this means I’ll start bleeding within 48 hours of this stuff showing up. But it’s been six days and… nothing.
We had a house-guest for most of the week who shed some light on the possibility that this might have more to do with the waxing, nearly full Moon than with the state of my uterus. So I’m going to start tracking that and see what-all lines up with what.
As for this full moon, in particular… Ugh. Everything comes full circle. Everything comes back around again… :-\
 
Sarah Gottesdiener, over at Little Red Tarot, says:

If you are doing a spell for this particular moon, […] feeling your desires within your body, take some time to summon what might feel hard. […] The shedding of one skin is not an easy transition. […] Acknowledge the feelings of fear, anxiety, the unease you might have of the unknown, of being fully seen, fully given the gifts you’ve wanted for years.
This Full Moon, bring it all up, let it be reflected under her light.
Realize we aren’t in linear time. […] We are in an internal spiral, where time and time again we are asked to encounter our most devastating patterns and our most inspirational truths.

 
…All of-which is kind of wacking me in the face right now.
See, the other day, I was having a Writing Date with a friend and working on a poem, when a stranger came up and said “I have something to tell you”.
She’s one of those people who are the opposite of me, in that rather than being a total bunker and Natural Ground, they get Messages that need to be passed along. She’s been getting them for 30 years, so she’s used to people being a little put off by her. I have no idea if it was weird for her to have someone go “Oh. Yeah, no, I totally get that.” And treat this as part of their Normal. Maybe it happens way more often than I think it does. Who knows.
ANYWAY.
What she said was (in highlights form):
 

There’s something happening / going-to-happen with you. Something about a child. And… math? Numbers? 2s and 3s
Look at the numbers.
You need to trust Divine, trust your soul more.
The answers are within yourself.
Everything comes full circle.
There are three people around you. The one in the middle might be male, but I can’t actually tell[1]. Two of them are younger.
Everything will work out how you want it to.
 
Also: there’s a ladder, like a symbolic ladder. You’re not ready to climb it yet, but when you are, you’ll climb up 1-2-3- rungs.

 
 
So, here’s the thing. I was writing a poem about trying to be family again with the ex who I thought was about to move back to Ontario (and who occupies a place in my heart that has a lot of “child” built into it. An ex who also used to date my wife, and who introduced me to a lovely person who turned out to live up the street from me), which included a lot of tarot references (6 of cups, 3 of cups, in particular).
 
So I thought I knew what this was about.
 
And then I got home, and my wife said she’d heard from The Ex that day, and that said ex was staying in Alberta and aiming to move overseas, permanently, in the next year or so.
Which.
I actually cried a whole lot that night, because while I’d been bracing for having to deal with seeing them around far more frequently than I did when they were living across the country, I’d also been hopeful of some kind of “we can actually be friends with each other and I’ll be able to trust you again” outcome and… that’s just not going to happen. And it sucks so much both that it’s not going to happen AND that I’d been holding onto that hope for just about a year-and-a-half at this point.
Feelings of grief (still, ffs).
But also a certain amount of humiliation? Like “how could I have been so foolish/stupid to think that this would end the way I wanted it to…?”
 
…All of-which to say: I basically have no idea what the message is actually about. Like, obviously, it’s about leveling up in some department. But I don’t know WHICH department, y’know? I mean, interpersonal relationships are kind of a huge deal for me, and there are clearly People Involved. But who even knows.
 
The folks over at Hoodwitch say:

What you fear says more about you than you may think, Scorpio. If you use the Full Moon on the 9th to help you investigate what you’re resisting, you may make some progress in dislodging its roots from your belly.

 
Once upon a time, I had a conversation with my Dad that went something like this:
Him: You’re carrying around a huge amount of anger.
Me: I know. But if I let go of it, I don’t think there will be anything left of me…
 
It was another 7-8 years before I did anything close to starting therapy and dealing with all that rage. BUT. I’ve been having similar feelings… sort of… about something else recently. That I have these internal Defense Walls inside me. They feel like gristle or scar tissue, but they’re energetic. Or something along those lines. And that, if I let all those guards down, let them go, I’ll fall apart.
So, on the “summoning what feels hard” and “investigate what you’re resisting” fronts, I had a conversation with My Lovely Wife about, well, all of that stuff. About the ladder I’m not ready to go up yet (or at least one aspect of what I’m currently assuming The Ladder is about), about things I’m resisting, about things that are hard.
I also did a couple of tarot spreads about the above-mentioned Message From Beyond.
The short one is a variation on the Who And How spread – which I want to say I got from Asali Earthworks, possibly via Little Red Tarot, but for-which I can’t find the original link. Basically, the answers looked like this:
 

“Who and How do I have to be to climb that ladder?”
Who: New Vision
How: beyond Illusion

 

“What is the context of this Leveling Up?”
Advisor: Seven of Air.
Over-Arching Influences: Page of Water.
Underlying Influences: Six of Water.

 
The “context” cards are the easy ones here. The over-arching and under-lying water cards…
I often think of myself as a Page of Cups, less inclined to wear my heart on my sleeve and more about dipping my toes in the water, still learning How To Relationship. And yet… When I look up the Page of Water, I get phrases like “Be intimate, be intuitive, be emotional, be loving”. Even the heavily-simplified Shakespeare Oracle tarot deck (I won it as a door prize last week) touches on the Page’s open-heartedness. The page of cups is a reminder that “The door is open and you know how to fly, you just need to step out on a limb and take off” (which makes me think of “you’re not ready yet, but when you are, you’ll climb up 1-2-3). The page lives gently, learns (is still learning) from her mistakes, but isn’t afraid to try again, try something new, take a chance.
The Six is the “wishful thinking” card. I’ve seen it interpreted more kindly or optimistically as “reunion” or “innocence” or even “playful connections”, interpretations that connect it with kindness, generosity, and the potential (and need) for mutual care. Little Red Tarot even reads it as “Fuck the system, I’m going to be who I really am!”… Which would be a lovely way to view this, and – given the whole “leveling up” thing – maybe is how I should go? In my case, though, the six of cups is frequently a card of longing that hints at… well, given that the 7 of Water in this deck is projections, I tend to read it as a bad tendency to assume one thing is happening when, in reality, no such thing was ever promised or put into words. (Weirdly, this card’s “key dates” fall right on top of my birthday. Hm…)
The 7 of Air has pretty much always spoken to the deep fear/suspicion that I’m a Monster Inside and that I have to pretend to be something so much smaller, less voracious, more polite than I actually am in order to be loved and wanted. It tends to serve as a reminder to Take Off The Mask. Which can relate to both the “be who you really are” and “stop assuming everyone means the same thing when they use the same words” stuff in the Six of Cups, to the “set yourself free” stuff intrinsic to the Page.
 
As for Who and How?
Who do I need to be? The Hanged Man. Which is patience, taking a breath, “hanging around”, a long look in the mirror, a willingness to entertain a change in perspective.
How do I need to be this? Judgement. Awakening, Liberation. (when you’re ready, you’ll climb). Don’t just hang in there, take a look around. Notice how things could be different.
 
Ugh.
And that’s the thing.
Because, when I read for myself, I tend to get the answers I’m expecting. Like when I assume the six of cups is always and only the “wishful thinking” card, and completely ignore all the numerous good/positive/hopeful aspects of it. I see The Hanged Man, and I read it as a specific thing. And sometimes I wonder what I’m missing. Can it mean “be willing to let your world be flipped upside down”? Can it mean “Stop worrying about controlling every little thing”? Can it mean “Let It Go“? Can it mean a whole bunch of stuff that I’m just not thinking of? (Uh… probably).
 
ANYWAY.
 
 
Ariel, at Siobhan’s Mirror, said in her (two weeks ago) tarotscope for Scorpio:

Understand that all you wish for already exists and is on its way to you.

…Which puts me in mind of the not-so-long-ago message in that reading I did for the New Moon right around Beltane.
 
Chani says:

Surround yourself with the folks that inspire you to trust in the ebbs and flows of life.
Surround yourself with the folks that help you to feel your own innate sturdiness.
Surround yourself with the folks that never have you second guessing your gifts.
&nbsp:
As Venus moves into Taurus, it wants to help you to connect with those that know how to build. Partnerships. Relationships. Life. This month-long journey of Venus’s wants you to open up to the possibilities of different kinds of partnering.
 
The season of love is upon you.

 
I can only hope.
 
 
ANYWAY. I’ve been sitting on this post for seriously a month… Time to hit the Post button.
 
 
TTFN,
Meliad.
 
 
[1] Being psychic doesn’t mean you can’t be cissexist. I have a bunch of masc-of-centre NB folks in my life, which “…might be a guy, but I can’t tell” could sort-of apply to, but seeing as there aren’t a whole lot of straight-up dudes in my life, I have no fucking clue who this person is. Given the context, it seems unlikely to be my brother, so… Uh? No idea.

New Year New You 2016: Weeks 14 & 15 – Searching for a Sign + One Small Step and Then One More

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: “Now would be a good time to check in with your personal Powers That Be (PTB) about your goals. […] How do your PTB’s advice change your approach to your goals?” PLUS “We’ve spent a few more weeks thinking, planning, and doing magic. Now it’s time to return to the task at hand: doing the work necessary to accomplish our goals.”.
 
Tarot Cards: Eight of Vessels (Week 14) + Two of Earth (Week 15).
 
So. I spent the past month-and-a-bit avoiding my tarot cards. A mixture of being afraid of what they’d tell me and being afraid of how I’d mis/read things (the stories in our heads are frequently how we interpret readings for ourselves, and it’s easy to read worst-case scenarios AND wishful-thinking daydreams into what the cards have to say).
None the less, messages have a way of getting through.
A huge part of the Queen of Cups Project has been, basically, answering the question of “How do I get to Happy?” Miss Sugar talks, occasionally, about Radiomancy – the practice of seeing what pops up when you spin the dial, put your playlist on shuffle, or otherwise just see what songs are screaming at you from the airwaves.
I’ve been getting these two a lot. Plus this came across my desk this morning.
Gosh, do you think someone is trying to tell me something?
>.>
 
Yeah.
 
My Eight of Water story is, basically, “Gotta let this one go. No fixing it. Time to start again. Put your energy somewhere else” like, say, feeding your whale heart and nurturing relationships with people who actually care about you. Combine that with all the “Femme Emotional Labour” and “Trojan Horse Boundary Crossing” stories I’ve been getting linked to, of late (or, y’know, all freaking year…) and, yeah. The Eight of Blooms (top, right) is the pearl found (at last?) after going through a lot of oysters. All those discarded heart and vulva shapes ringing a treasure found by moonlight, by shining a light on all my old patterns and assumptions. The “rebirth” of the Eight of Vessels is a reminder that there will be other chances, that it’s hard to be happy when you’re fussing over every little thing in order to “make” yourself worthy in the eyes of someone who, when you get right down to it, messed with your head and took advantage of you, no matter how much of a compassionate lens you can view that through.
 
So that’s the information I’ve been getting.
 
How does that translate into One Small Thing I can do to push towards my goal?
My Queen of Cups goal has been to become more receptive, to understand that I’m actually loveable and worthy rather than just some fuck-up who has too much privilege and too much monster-brain to warrant being cared for without having to seriously earn that stuff. So…
I mentioned feeding my “whale heart”. That’s a Life Coaching thing, my “new Way of being/operating” that is self-compassionate, and doesn’t truck with people who won’t step up to meet her needs the way she steps up to meet theirs. The one small thing, the moment-to-moment practical thing I can do to feed my Whale Heart is to practice being kind to myself and doing what’s actually good for me.
Yes, it’s totally a challenge – I’m something of what Nydia Dauphin calls a “high functioning self-neglector”. Way more likely to make food if I’m feeding someone other than myself. Way more likely to swallow the worst of my feelings and focus on others than make them listen to me whine (uh… this entire blog notwithstanding…) – but it’s also necessary. So. Things I can do right now along those lines?
 
Start the latest batch of stock + process a bunch of sunchokes/as’kebwan’ for the freezer. This will make it easier for me to make meals later on.
 
Put dinner in the oven (I dug through my meat bin, in the freezer, and pulled out a tiny roast. This, with some sunchokes/as’kebwan’ will be a good start to dinner. I can throw in some frozen veggies or pickled beets and sour kraut (if they’re ready) for veggie content) and make myself Real Food instead snacking on crackers until my wife gets home to start cooking. It’s not quite making Real Food For Just Me, but it’s a step in that direction.
 
Bake something (probably soda bread and/or brownies using whey and/or Gone Off Milk). This will be creative, plus it will mean easy go-to food available for lunches and snacks over the next few days. It will also clean out the fridge a bit, which won’t hurt.
 
Do 10 minutes of yoga (child’s pose, plank, tree, warrior pose in one direction, Goddess pose, warrior pose in the opposite direction, downward dog, heart-melting pose, child’s pose again), possibly while humming. This will work my body, strengthen my arms and my core (good for my back), remind me to make music and let me move energy through my body.
 
Start anointing my heart chakra with “Unveiled” – a limited edition perfume/magical oil that Miss Sugar made, years ago – to help me see what I usually can’t/won’t see, the bad stuff I wish wasn’t there, but also the good stuff that I’m too prone to ignoring or refusing to allow in.
 
Wish me luck!
 
 
TTFN,
Meliad the Birch Maiden.