Thursday, December 21, 2017

Tarot Blog Hop, Yule 2017: From the Past to the Future

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Our Wrangler for this year's Yule Blog Hop,  Ania Marczyk, has reminded us that, no matter what Festival Of Light we individually celebrate at this time of the year, it is a time of celebration of what has come to pass in our lives, and anticipation of what may be yet to come. So we will be drawing cards that represent what has come to pass for us in the preceding year which is now ending; this, we will contemplate and attempt to understand. Because we will also look into the future and see what may be coming to pass, and, standing on the foundation of what has already come, looking and thinking about how we may move forward, we will be focusing on what we wish the coming year to bring. And, no matter what we discover, we will be able to make it work in some way over the coming year.

The Past: This draw is based on three cards, drawn numerologically, one at a time. The first one represents the age we achieved in this year. My age became 70, so I am using the entire shuffled deck of 72 cards,  and drawing card number 70, to represent the overarching energy of the past year as it affects me. And the card I drew is:
Chief Seattle is not a myth or a legend, but a person. Chief of the Duwamish tribe in now-Washington State, Seattle tried to make peace with white settlers who sought to move his people from the land they inhabited. Seattle is most famous for having spoken passionately and powerfully on native and environmental rights, though his words are now forgotten and lost. Haindl draws him with a leaping Orca, a symbol of the life sustaining food and spirituality of Seattle's tribe. Like the indigenous people of North America, the Orca is now endangered. Seattle is seen with a lightning bolt striking a feather in his hair- which is not a feature of the Duwamish people's garb, but represents the fact, as  Rachel Pollack points out in her book on the Haindl,  that "Seattle did not speak only for his own nation" There is a challenge to this card- a challenge to learn and to grow and connect to forgotten ways. Not to appropriate and transform them, but to learn as much as we can about them. My past year, of doing readings for many people, some of whom had no experience with, and "do not believe in" divination, exemplifies the concept of doing what one needs to do in order to understand people and situations that one does not know personally, and figuring out what needs to be done to keep things moving forward in a positive manner. The Tarot is reminding me that this was the overarching energy of my entire year, and that I need to bring that wisdom into my new year to continue to grow.

The second card, numerologically, is the number of this day of this year--the Winter Solstice in 2017. That number is a 7, which represents building on a foundation, and is our reminder that nothing we have experienced in this past year is exactly what we think it is. Seven is the "seeker" trying to discover the hidden meaning of life's events.  And so--what is the focus of those things?
The Two of Stones represents balance and harmony, both within the Self and in interactions with the outside world. The past may have been hard to deal with in its actual events, but it is for us to decide what those events can help us achieve of balance and harmony as we have attempted to deal with them. That is the foundation of the future year that we will carry with us.

And the third card of the past year is numerologically represented by adding the age we achieved to the year itself, not to some particular day. So, for me, this is 2017 + 70, which equates to 8. And this represents the focus of what we need to understand in order to walk with confidence into the next year. 8 represents building on a foundation and discovering the reason behind the event. And we chose this card:
which is a clear message that the harmony and balance we wish to achieve in the future will be, as it was in the past, achieved only by personal internal Strength, of purpose, of character, and of will.

And so--what will the future hold? Let's find out. For the final three cards of this reading, I simply drew the three cards representing the date of next year's birthday, next year's solstice, and a random number discovered by a throw of the dice. And these cards were drawn all in the same cycle; for me, it was the 9th card, the 8th card, and my random number, the 11th card. And we simply, in my spiritual path, align these three cards with Body, Mind, and Spirit, where we will experience and understand the future. And we have:



Osiris reminds us that we must look more deeply than simply regarding what we see, and look within for its deeper meaning. The Star is our reminder that, no matter what happens, we are to connect it with our High Self, with our sacred journey and our internal purpose. And the 7 of Cups speaks of making certain we don't decide too quickly on the meaning of future events, but analyze them looking at all three Realms, Body, Mind, and Spirit, to recognize what they truly mean to us.

And so--there you are. Welcome to your Future!

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Friday, September 22, 2017

Tarot Blog Hop Mabon 2017: Dining With Deity



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Welcome to the Tarot Blog Hop celebrating Mabon/Harvest Home 2017. Our wonderful Wrangler, Kiss Boglárka, and her co-Wrangler, Jay Cassels, have come up with a topic that is right up my alley and amazingly pertinent to this festival. Here's an overview:

"At Mabon, we can enjoy the harvest of what we have sown, giving thanks for what we have – and profiting of it as much as we can, also, profiting of what Nature gives us. If we just think of how much sunshine has nurtured and grown our harvest into what it is, and yes, we can benefit from all that vital power and energy of the sunshine if we prepare and eat food with love and respect – and this sunshine will literally turn into Light in us. And do not forget, Light becomes a blessing in those who share it with others" And therefore, to celebrate the Harvest of Light, we were invited to share a card or cards from the deck which we considered to be a representative of the bounty of the harvest, and suggest a recipe that Being would cook, and a sacred way it might be done, so that the bounty of life and the celebration of Light could be shared. And so, here's my suggestion:





My primary Goddess-Mother is Brighid of the Celts, and She is the Daughter of Cups in my primary Tarot deck, the Haindl Tarot. And when I think of her symbolism, I think of the Three Fires of Brighid, Fire in the Head, Fire in the Heart, Fire in the Hands, which are explained as Knowledge, Passion, and Creative Ability. So--fire for cooking, and fire for thinking and fire of caring and sharing...we're going to make an Irish dish that represents the bounty of the Waters, the Land, and the Sky, the three Realms or the three elemental energies of the Celts. So--Let's start with an appetizer of Smoked Salmon and make a  main dish of  Roast Goose, served with Colcannon, and serve it with a lovely bottle of Irish Whiskey and some Irish Coffee to finish. In order to prepare the meal in a sacred and thankful way, one does the cooking in a kitchen where candles burn and an herbal incense burns, and one makes offering to the Gods of all the finished foods on one's sacred offering plate, and toasts Them with Irish Coffee.

And here's the recipe for that Colcannon, which combines Land and Sea in some amazing ways and speaks to the soul of Irish cooking:




3 cups Irish potatoes, new ones with the skin on
1 cup chopped cabbage
1 cluster of green onions, chopped
1 quarter pound of bacon
Butter
Sour cream
Irish whiskey

Cook the new potatoes, with skins on, in a pot of water which just covers them, along with the chopped cabbage and green onions. While they are cooking, let the bacon cook to a light brown. When the potatoes are done, mash them in a bowl with about one stick of soft butter, a half-cup of Irish whiskey, and a cup of sour cream. Add the chopped bacon, stir thoroughly, and place on very low heat for 30 minutes to mix the flavors. Serve with your roast goose and enjoy your smoked salmon as a side dish/appetizer, and you eat and honor the return of light, the three realms, and the Gods who have given us the gift of life, food, and harvest home. Blessings of the Light to you!



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Tuesday, August 1, 2017

Tarot Blog Hop, Lughnassadh 2017: How I Honor And Respect My Tarot and Other Divination Tools


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I use my Haindl Tarot, my Celtic Ogham Staves, and my self-created Faery-Fire Oracle in tandem with one another when I do my work as a House Reader at Crone's Hollow. And I have discovered, from the Spirits of the Speakers (my term for the inner wraith that provides the information) that there is a very clear path to showing honor and respect for these spiritual gifts, and that I must not fail to reverence what is of spirit...soooo...here's how we do that.

1) Each and every time I set up for my shift of readings, each and every day, when the cards are laid out, there is a blessing I do beginning with sprinkling sacred scent for purification, then incense for charging, then the calling in of my Deities and the Wraith. I then smudge the entire area to focus the energy and clear out unwanted distractions.

2) Before I take my first client, I draw one card for my Self to let me know what energy to concentrate on this day, and one other card for my Self to let me know what to beware of, avoid, or watch out for. This focuses my energy for the day.

3) I do not permit the client to tell me an exact question. I ask that they will think deeply about the things they want to know, silently within themselves, and then I tell them what question each set of cards will answer, beginning with the first sett which tells the client "What do I need to KNOW about this circumstance that I do not now know?" and goes on from there with a new question for each individual draw. In this way, I respect the cards by not permitting my own inner thoughts and feelings about their question or situation influence my interpretation--instead, I don't know enough to have a personal opinion, so when I do the interpretation, it is the cards that are speaking, not my Self.

4) I do not permit any money to change hands until the reading is done, and I request that the client make an offering in my cash bowl to Fortuna in thanksgiving--not a tip, it is just where I ask them to place the money. I want it clear to them that I am only an interpreter and a guide, not the source of their response.

5) After each client leaves, I once again cleanse and charge the space before I take the next client. No leftover energy is present to influence the next draw. Each client begins in a clear and sacred space.

It has been very very interesting for me to focus on this work and explain to myself and to you, my readers, how I choose to honor the cards. May we all give joy and thanks for what we are permitted to do, and may we all continue to do it. Walk in beauty!!


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Tuesday, June 20, 2017

Tarot Blog Hop, Litha 2017-- A Being "Of Two Minds"....


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This Hop celebrates the contest between the Oak King, Cernunnos, the Green Man, who is God of the Waxing Year and fertilizes the land with plants and babies in women's wombs, etc., and his “Tanist”, or chosen replacement, Lugh, the Holly King, or Red God, who brings the Harvest and creates the Waning Year by means of blood sacrifice of animals so there will be meat, reaping the grain and vegetables and plants, and otherwise clearing the fertile ground and taking the results of the Green Man's cycle of fertility, making it the Red God's cycle of harvesting. It is important in the understanding of this Lore to realize that the two Deities here represented are actually seen as one God, two Faces of the same Being, two aspects of life, and actually perform the combat between Oak and Holly as a necessary adaptation of their own Being, with the full understanding of the necessity of both a waxing and a waning year, planting and harvesting, and the joy of creation connected with the necessity of using that creation. And so, my friends, as the Oak King and the Holly King are two aspects of the same being, so we will use our Tarot cards to explore and explain the duality of our own natures. Who, indeed, is your “other Self”, your “Tanist”? How is it that you are, actually, of “two minds”? And how does that affect your life?

Of My Waxing Mind--- My usual Significator in the deck I use most often, the Haindl Tarot, is the Daughter of Cups, my primary Goddess, Brighid of the Three Fires:

  She represents the three aspects of living that I invoke most often in my day-to-day working of my own life, and my assistance through readings to others--these aspects are Poesy, Smithcraft, and Healing, also known as Fire in the Head, Fire in the Hands, Fire in the Heart. The Triple Fires of Brigid resonate with me in my own activities and in my knowledge of the triplicity of all actions in life--first you know and learn, then you care and focus, and then you decide what to do. And so this card represents to me all the aspects of "planting the seeds" of each and every action I intend, and letting me know what, and why, and then how.
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Of My Waning Mind-- My "Other Half", my Tanist, the half of my Being that is not part of the focus and planning and preparation for seeding the land, is represented here by the Mother of Swords, Nut/Nuit, the Egyptian Goddess of the Shadowed Night.



Nuit's energy is that of the night sky, the shadows that cloak all the light of day in darkness. She is that which represents the pause for reflection, the ceasing activity to contemplate the next step, the peace of sleep and the rest and reawakening that comes with Death. And yet--it is the darkness of Nuit that makes it possible for us to see the stars, gleaming one at a time through the endless cloak of darkness, each of them with its own light, name, and meaning---and that, my friends, is the energy of my Other Half, my Tanist. I never succeed at creating that which I wish to invoke without having to take into account all the other details that only present themselves when I believe my work is finished and I can now rest. Drawing away from the activity of Brighid's Flame makes it possible for me to contemplate my actions in the soft darkness of Nuit's silence and shadows....and in so doing, I always find something that I did not know was going to be there, something that is an intrinsic part of what has been created but that could never be noticed or recognized or put into play until I believed my works were done and I might rest. Nuit is the bringer of the darkness without which we would never be able to notice or manifest what is truly in the light. And she is always the other half of all I believe Brighid has guided me to do.
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And so, to the directions and elements that influence, and are influenced by, my Waxing and Waning Being. Mind, Will, Action, Intuition, and Spirit manifest for me with the following cards this time around:

Mind/Air:
The Eight of Stones, Knowledge, connected to Brighid's Fire in the Head as I study and immerse myself in new ideas, and to Nuit's silent shadows as I always realize that anything I learn usually leaves me with more questions than answers, so this one is never finished, just constantly mutating and going in a different direction.

Will/Fire:
The image on the card fits perfectly with my understanding of the two facets of my Will--it's not just "what do I Will" as Brighid's Fire in the Heart represents, but it is also, "But what do I Need To Do", which is not at all the same thing, as Nuit shows in the shadows that what I want might not be the right way to proceed. We have the Strength of Eve in the Garden, knowing she must defeat the Serpent, but unwilling to harm him or become evil as he was supposed to be. So for this one--there are always more than two answers.

Action/Earth:
No surprises here, because the "Devil", whose name in Hebrew was "Ha-Shatan", is literally "The Obstacle" and represents all the many boulders, corners, dead ends and detours in the road we try to map for ourselves. Brighid's Flame has given me "Fire In The Hands", as in, "You need to and want to do THIS", but Nuit's starlight and darkening shadows will always remind me that nothing is that simple and nothing goes the way you want it to the first time....So--I expect the obstacles, and if I can, I make them part of the journey. But I keep going....

Intuition/Water


Not at all strange to me that the card I drew for Water is a Fire card--because, for me, Courage is as much intuitive knowledge as it is the bravery to act in a certain way. I completely identify Fire with Water and vice-versa, because as far as my own life goes, what I wish and desire is always moderated by my inner voice whispering of emotion and intuition. Here my two Goddesses work in harmony, as Brighid inspires me with passion and intent, and Nuit shows me the hidden mysteries of what I expect to accomplish and how much more convoluted is my Will than I am consciously aware.

Wisdom/Spirit
And here we have a final result of all my seeding, sowing, thinking, harvesting, and doing--simply put, the concept of constant and repeated change, the knowledge that nothing remains the same and nothing is as simple as it looks, and the awareness that I will never reach the end of the journey, just a different phase thereof. And for me, knowing the journey is the destination IS Wisdom. And I do keep learning that, from all the aspects of my Two Beings.

Many Litha blessings to you all, and may your own journey, planting and harvest, be productive and rewarding. Blessed Be!


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Tarot Blog Hop, Litha 2017-- Master List

Here is the list of all participants in the 2017 Litha Blog Hop, with links to their blog entries. Neighbors of each participant can here find the permalinks to post on your own blog entry. Please enjoy your journey through the Hop:


Alison Coals: http://alisonsalembic.blogspot.com/2017/06/tarot-blog-hop-summer-solstice-2017.html


Arwen Lynch Poe: http://tarotbyarwen.com/19084/tarotbloghoplitha2017/


Jay Cassels: http://metaphysicalangels.co.uk/thb10


Chloe McCracken: http://www.innerwhispers.co.uk/of-two-minds-how-about-four/ 






Monday, May 1, 2017

Tarot Blog Hop, Bealteine 2017: Tarot AND.....







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So, my friends. here is the 2017 Bealteine Tarot Blog Hop....our charming Wrangler, Arwen Lynch Poe, has asked us to respond to the question, ""Do you combine Tarot with any other divination system? Why or why not?"  I find this topic totally engrossing and exceptionally useful to me, since indeed I do work with three different oracles (at a minimum) when I am doing readings. And my reasons are as follows....

There is quite a range of reasons why people come in to get a reading, but in my Druidic background, as well as my connection to Brighid as Her Priestess, I do have a tendency to group the kinds of readings that people request into the context of the Three Realms as Druidry denotes them, Land, Sea, and Sky, or Body, Mind, and Spirit...and my hope for my clients is that we will, together, work the reading so that they may go away feeling as if they are able to deal with one of the Three Fires of Brighid to create their desired end, with either Fire in the Head (Poetry), Fire in the Hands (Smithcraft), or Fire in the Heart (Healing). And the three tools I use work to this end.

My own creation, the Faery-Fire Oracle, is based on the Nine Realms of the Sidhe, relating to nine aspects of human personality, and the nine stages of life. And so this one works really well for things where the client needs clarity about what is going on within the Self. Fire in the Heart is Inner Health and Well-Being. It is knowing what is going on within your own heart and mind, and it is creating whatever you need to do to achieve your desired end regardless of circumstances. And so, this is the first tool I explain to the client.

The Tarot itself is a tool with great subtlety, much detail, and many ramifications available in any circumstance. I consider it the paramount oracle for dealing with issues concerning the outside world of the client, including family, relationships, job, home, money, friends, and all the other "outside stuff" that is actually the foundation upon which of us builds our personal lives. It is a useful tool to create for us "Fire In The Head", i.e. awareness and knowledge and ideas about how to deal with the ramifications of life.

The third tool I use is the Celtic Tree Runes, the Ogham, in the Beith-Luis-Nion arrangement. Because of the energy of the trees as the year proceeds from Birch to Yew, this tool can give the client specific information about the energy of The Future, what kinds of energies are coming forward and what to do more of or less of to open the Gate of Fate. As the client looks at the tools laid out on the table, he or she chooses which one or ones might best fit the context of their desired information.

And just as an example, since this Hop celebrates Bealteine, I am going to do a draw for all of us to look at. There will be one card drawn from each tool, to respond to the question, "In the Bealteine Fire, which burns with love and inner flame of passion, what is it I need to know and experience to assist me to move forward with New Life?"

And so...here we go.



Faery-Fire Oracle: Queen of Passion's Flame. Her interpretation: 
The Faeries Say: You are a passionate person in every sense of the word. Sometimes that might put you at odds with others, and sometimes that might make you feel as if you are standing alone in some situations. But there is one thing to remember here. Your passion for life and for the things that matter to you is what sets you apart from every other person on the planet, and your passionate nature in relationships means no one is indifferent to you, and that no relationship in your life is unimportant.



 
Haindl Tarot: Six of Cups: Interpretation: You need to be more powerful, directing the flow rather than following. Look at your past as a repository of wisdom to be applied judiciously in the present.  Then use this as motivation for change. Make the very best use of hindsight, employing new strategies and trying new angles on these recurring issues.







      















Celtic Ogham, Gort/Ivy: The Spiral To Center: Interpretation: Look within your Self to know the tools with which the Universe will create your Future. It is necessary that you understand and accept all the details of your own personality, and choose to use these as tools to create your future.

And so, friends, there you have it. Tarot---AND. Body, Mind, and Spirit. Walk in Beauty!






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