Five of Wands - Wait for the right time to go for it

Today’s card is the Five of Wands from the Shadowscapes Tarot. This card is all about competition; wanting to be challenged and more importantly wanting to win. It is my “go for  it” card.

  

Al the foxes want to catch the hare and are jumping over each other  and are obstructing the guy who wants to go the opposite way. It doesn’t feel to me like the foxes are doing this on purpose because they only have on thing on their mind : Hare!

Since the beginning of October I have not been able to do the things I love the most due to my neck hernia. I am happy to say my pain is decreasing gradually and typing gets easier each day. But writing longhand in my journal, drawing and knitting are still difficult. Now, since the new year, I have been ill. Nothing serious but enough to lower my energy levels and not feeling up to do anything productive.

Oh, how I want to run up that hill just for the fun of it. Not because I have to but just because I want to feel my blood running through my veins and feel the fulfillment of reaching the top.

As advice on how to deal with these fiery feelings I got the Page of Pentacles: Just sit this out patiently and enjoy what I can do. Read a good book and write a blog post. Find wisdom (owl) in waiting because my opportunities will keep slumbering for a while longer until I am really ready to wake them up.

Word, Card and Rune for 2017

Long before the New year, I had decided what my word for 2017 would be. It is one I struggle with a lot. The word I picked for this year is Trust: Trust in myself and trust in others. I hesitated about adding faith too but I feel Trust is a more active and empowering word than faith.  Faith is more like a spiritual concept and trust is a verb: “Trust is faith in action!”

So with that in mind I pulled my card for my theme the year. Whatever it would be I wanted to trust that it would be able to teach me a valuable lesson this year and I pulled the Nine of Cups ( pfff). This card is all about experiencing intense joy and emotional fulfillment on a personal level. For me the Ten is more about the well-being of community; the love and joy experienced with family, friends and loved ones. The Nine however is an invitation to discover everything which brings you joy, to fill up those nine cups. But also it is about accepting what life has already put in those cups and making the most out of it. Joy can even be found even in the hardest of times.

In the five we were grieving and not able to see the two cups standing upright, The Six reminds us that our happy memories are always with us, the Seven asks us to find out what our heart truly desires. In the Eight we try to leave our cups behind. (I sincerely doubt if that is ever possible) And then we reach the Nine where we learn to find gratitude and Joy in all aspects of life.

I pulled Perthro from my bag of runes to go with The Nine of Cups and immediately  I recognized the cup which would transform my Nine into a Ten, into completion. Perthro means dice cup and it is a symbol of mystery, of not knowing. How this cup will guide me from Nine to Ten is a question I Trust, I will be able to answer one day and maybe even before 2018.

Year ahead spread: January - Nine of Swords and Teiwaz

This year was the first time I did a Year Ahead Spread for myself.  For this kind of spread you basically pull a single card for each month as a theme or an energy you may want to explore for that month. The first card you pull is your  theme for the year. I also added rune to each card to give the reading  an extra oomph. I intend to post my card of the month in the beginning of each month. For this spread I’ve used the Wild Unknown Tarot but I might want to use the version of one of the cards I pulled from another deck instead. Or I might even take the card from several decks for comparison. We’ll see were this journey will lead me.

So for January I pulled the Nine of Swords which in this deck is a very disturbing looking card and it is definitely not a very uplifting theme to start the new year with. The Nine of Swords is all about anxiety, bad dreams, guilt and regret, destructive self-talk etc.

Luckily I got the rune Teiwaz (Tir) to go with it. Teiwaz is a warrior rune but also one of order, justice and rationality . You can compare this rune with the Emperor card.

I often am prone to this kind of behavior when I let negative thinking get the best of me.  The worst things could happen if you would believe my internal gibberish. So I feel the energy of Teiwaz can be quite helpful. It is the rationality of this rune which speaks the most clearly to me in this context.

This rune awakes the inner sentinel which will defeat my Fear by showing me what it really is: False Expectations are Appearing Real. Such a clarity bomb often works a lot better than trying to ignore these thoughts or pushing them away. Both of these methods will often make our negative thinking even more persistent and intrusive.

I believe working with this pair could be a very interesting experience.  

Motto: Since I do not know how not to think I want to be mindful of what I think.

New Moon in December

Pulling my cards for this New Moon, at het end of the Holiday season, feels a lot like an intention setting for January. I suppose most of us are anxiously anticipating the first of January, when everything will get back to “normal”

For this New moon I pulled two cards from the Dreams of Gaia Tarot:

Release – X Wisdom

This card relates closely to the Hermit in a traditional Tarot deck. It represents o.a: inner wisdom, self knowledge and shadow work. Yes, I feel the time for inward reflection is coming to an end. It can be tempting to stay in our cave a bit longer but life is more than only seeking inner wisdom. It is also about having experiences and creating opportunities to gain wisdom from. Without those our wisdom might become shallow and meaningless

Embrace – XI of Fire – Masculine/feminine

A very motivating card for this coming lunation. This card is all about finding the balance between passive and active energy. January often appeals to our most active energy, so we can better ourselves, follow up on our new year resolutions and trying to work on our goals and intentions. This is not always the most effective way to go about it. Instead of hurrying and chasing and doing our uttermost best, listen to your energetic rhythms and try to be flexible. Embrace the energy which suits you best. It is okay to slow down, even in January! There are eleven more months to come.

The Wheel - Carving out Space and Time

Question to draw a card with: How can I take care of myself during the last days of this year? And I got The Wheel from the DruidCraft Tarot.

Some keywords for this card are Completion  and beginning of a cycle.

For me this is a perfect card for the last out breath of this year. A time to  recuperate from the stressful Christmas season. Only one festivity to go and then the new year will begin. The priestess is drawing a circle with her wand, while holding a symbol of the wheel of the year in her other hand. The circle is almost completed. It is a symbol for a completed cycle but it is also a sacred space, out of time out of place, where we can recharge and/or ground ourselves and where we can connect with Spirit. It is so essential to carve out space and time for ourselves this time of year to withdraw from everyday distractions. This way we can reflect on what has been and what may come. This is the perfect time to set new intentions and let go of outdated beliefs.

I hope you will all be able to give yourself the gift of Space and Time these last few days of the year.  

My best Christmas gifts!

I wasn’t planning on blogging today but when I read Chloe’s post: “What Were Your Best ChristmasGifts?”

I was inspired to pull two cards to answer the following questions for myself. I used the Druidcraft Tarot since it is my “Christmas deck” for this year. I have been enjoying it so much; just looking at the pictures, discovering new details, pulling a card now and then and being amazed by its wisdom and evocative nature all over again.

So let’s dive in:

What is the best gift I gave this Christmas? – Ace of Swords

From the depth of my sometime murky unconscious  emerged one thought crystal clear: this Christmas is a brand new experience: a once in a life time Christmas. No need to stain it with regrets and/or high expectations of Christmases  past. This relaxed mindset allowed me to step into this year’s Christmas with my family and really enjoy it. My eldest daughter and her boyfriend and my husband all came to visit us and we had a very good and peaceful day. I was able to divide my energy with ease and even keep some for  myself.

What is the best gift I received this Christmas? – Three of Swords

All  the merriment and cheerfulness were like a healing balm for the lingering sadness which is always, one way or another, asking for attention during this season. But this year I felt no need to harden my heart so I could protect myself from feeling too much. No this year I felt like I could be truly be myself and that was a wonderful Christmas gift.

What were your gifts this year?

Son of swords – Keep your sword sheathed

My card for today is the Son of Swords from the Wild Unknown Tarot.  It feels like this card is warning me to keep silent when emotions are running high. And let’s be honest, these coming days emotions will easily get over heated and perhaps even explosive.

  

Tomorrow M. and I are going to bake two loaves of our traditional Christmas bread, and one apple pie. If we are emotional balanced it  will almost look like we are dancing around the ingredients and the loaves will be the final accord of the melody. But if we want to be right and do this how we think is best we will collide and might even hurt each other with our swords.

So what  is the advice we need for tomorrow. Ten of Cups. It seems like all the ingredients are coming together for a lovely baking day with delicious loaves of bread en  beautiful pie as result. Look how the cups are pouring their colors into one and other. Each cup is beautiful in its own way but together they are creating a rainbow rhapsody. So let’s keep our swords sheathed and let’s dance!