Nemia's Sacred Days of Yule - New Liminal Tarot

[Nemia]

Sacred Days of Yule

This spread will help you to learn to apply the tarot to enjoy and enrich your passage through the twelve festive days from December 20th to 31st. The meaning of each card in the spread reflects the energy of the festivity associated with each of the twelve days.

1. Mother Night of Dreams: - Dec 20th
This card reminds us to look for a particular message in our dreams tonight. The ancients believed that our dreams on this night foretold some of the important events in the coming year.

2. Yule - Winter Solstice: - Dec 21st
This card shows us how best to connect to the Light within and without - it symbolizes the Birth of the Sun.

3. The Time of Beth: - Dec 22nd
This card points to the inner blocks and resistance that is holding us back from following our dreams.

4. Hopi Time of Renewal - Dec 23rd
This card indicates the best way for us to seek purification and renewal, and to build tolerance for others.

5. Feast of Mothers, Christmas Eve: - Dec 24th
This card shows how we can connect with the spirits of our ancestors for communion and to ask for wisdom and guidance. It is also a time for Christians to reflect on the birth of Christ.

6. Festival of Life, Christmas: - Dec 25th
This card shows us how to connect directly with Spirit.

7. Yuletide, Kwanzaa: - Dec 26th
This card shows us how to express nurturance, to attend to our families and to express the protective energy within us towards others.

8. Birth of Freyja: - Dec 27th
This card points to issues of love, luck, artistic and creative expression and female wisdom.

9. Feast of Alcyone: - Dec 28th
This card gives us a personal inner message - one that speaks directly to our heart and spirit.

10. Day of Nymphs - Dec 29th
This card encourages us to connect to our playful side, our inner child and how best to cultivate this aspect of ourselves.

11. Day of Rest: - Dec 30th
This card shows us how to walk our path in a relaxed and confident way....with the ability to deal with stressful situations in a philosophical, detached way.

12. New Year's Eve, Hogmanay - Dec 31st
This card shows us how to release the old and let in the new. This relates to both our external lives and our inner being.

[Nemia]

1. Mother Night of Dreams: - Dec 20th
This card reminds us to look for a particular message in our dreams tonight. The ancients believed that our dreams on this night foretold some of the important events in the coming year.

The King of Pentacles (pictures later)

I have noticed lately that I have very vivid dreams, even more vivid than my whole life. There are dreams from childhood that I remember very strongly, I have always written down my dreams. But lately, I feel as though the state between waking and dreaming is filled to the brim with important dream messages, as though someone was briefing me before I dive down into the kelp woods of my dreams (yes, Octopus Teacher impacted me most strongly!) (and I loved a book as a child about a family living under water... always wanted to live there with them).

So when I'm diving down, I don't only get messages, I also have very strong reactions to them, very strong feelings. I know this because often, I wake up again before falling asleep deeply. Some kind of insomnia that's been part of my life forever.

But I can't remember anything, and that's been bothering, even torturing me a lot over the last months. I feel like I'm losing one of the energy sources of my life. wow, I didn't realize how strongly that bothers me until I put it into words right now. Until now, I just woke up with a feeling of pressure in my throat, leaving behind a colourful, strongly emotional world without taking with me even a tiny piece - and shaking off the regret when I move on. (I have all kind of strategies how to deal with this insomnia).

I have to recover my dreams, have to work actively on entering and leaving this in-between state, have to integrate that part of my life. I know that many answers are hidden there.

The King of Pentacles, this reassuring realist, is a good card to appear as mother of dreams. He can shepherd anything and anybody and re-integrate them. I'll try it when I go to sleep next time, I have to find the secure path back into my dream world. Some visualization or meditation will help. It has helped me enormously when I wished to visit my Inner Child, and I have returned there regularly. It's only lately that the path has been blocked. Probably too many worries on my mind? But my inner King of Pentacles can deal with anything.

[Nemia]

This is how my Yule circle looks right now - so many days have gone by already! I draw a card every morning but only now had the time to take pictures and write down what goes through my mind (didn't update my tarot calendar yet either - I'm like mesmerized by the Yule time, the virus restrictions and some very unpleasant health troubles!)


This was my King of Pentacles on the first day:

To my surprise, I had another king on December 21.



2. Yule - Winter Solstice: - Dec 21st
This card shows us how best to connect to the Light within and without - it symbolizes the Birth of the Sun.

This is amazing, king after king. Now I wrote about the dreams motif for the first card and then went on to have a very vivid lovely dream about one of my sons. I didn't see either son since last Christmas which is a year now (saw them for a very short time on a family funeral a bit later but the last real meeting was a year ago and my heart is breaking). My dream was so lovely that I woke up crying, I miss those young men so much.

So I had the dream about my Capricorn son and he's the King of Pentacles. And then the King of Wands appeared - my other son is a Gemini but has a lot of fire in his horoscope.

It was also the time of the Great Conjunction - Saturn (King of Pentacles!) and Jupiter (King of Wands)! I followed this conjunction closely. and then my Capricorn son phoned me and asked me where to look in order to see the conjunction. Yes, there are always little surprises with the cards. They're sometimes so literal, so close to our lives.

But back to the position in the spread. Where and how do I connect to the light? My inner King of Wands, the person full of energy and purpose, buried now beneath layers and layers of self denigration, self denial and self doubt, gives the answer. The light is within myself, my own sources of energy and willpower.



3. The Time of Beth: - Dec 22nd
This card points to the inner blocks and resistance that is holding us back from following our dreams.

The card tells it as it is. Eight of Swords - blockade - a simple statement of fact. I have never succeeded in tearing the bonds and veils that hold me back. I have tried, there have been better times, there have even been wonderful times when I thought I'm free.... but I always return to the safe place of restriction and confinement.




4. Hopi Time of Renewal - Dec 23rd
This card indicates the best way for us to seek purification and renewal, and to build tolerance for others.

Then of Cups.

Another wonderfully clear card. By loving others, but opening the circle, by accepting others as part of my family, I not only give them support they need but also renew and build myself.



5. Feast of Mothers, Christmas Eve: - Dec 24th
This card shows how we can connect with the spirits of our ancestors for communion and to ask for wisdom and guidance. It is also a time for Christians to reflect on the birth of Christ.


Page of Swords

A child with a book, a little girl. It's the Christkind as we knew it when I grew up (the German Christkind is a girl, don't ask me why but I remember loving the concept),

It's also the connection between past and future in my own life - I was a little girl, now I cherish little children in my family (no grandchildren yet but grand nieces and nephews).


I am always reseraching my family history and try to dive into the past before my birth in the same way I go to visit my childhood home through my Inner child meditation.

I love the detail of the book in the card.

Right now, I'm so much thrown back onto myself, I'm so much alone (which I actually cherish) that I'm strong re-connecting to my own and my family's past. The Sword also tells me to accept the bitter truths with the friendly ones.

I'm still working on my book about the Tarot and the Inner Child. I don't know whether I'll ever finish it but I think this Page of Sword tells me to do so.

[Nemia]

6. Festival of Life, Christmas: - Dec 25th
This card shows us how to connect directly with Spirit.


Ace of Disks


This morning, I drew the Ace of Disks, a wonderful, stubborn Bull. Oh how I need this bull. These are some seriously beautiful cards. I'll take pictures later, my fridge door where I put up my readings with magnets is terribly crowded right now.

My little study/tarotorium is too crowded! Now that my youngest has moved out, we have two empty rooms in the house - wait, did I say empty? Full of boxes the daughters promised to "do something" with. But once we'll move all this stuff, we'll have one guest room and one craft room. And then, my study (full of tarot and Art History) will be much relieved.

I am a bull, okay, a cow after all. I'm an Earth person, moving slowly and stubbornly through life, and Spirit touches my life when I'm happy and when I feel secure. Like countless others, the pandemic has shaken my security, and I suffer not only financially and emotionally, but also spiritually.

The Ace of Disks in this position, on the day so many Disks cards went up on my tarot calendar, reassures me. My spiritual needs will be satisfied again when I have re-gained my balance, when times get back to normal, when I feel safe and secure again.

[Nemia]

7. Yuletide, Kwanzaa: - Dec 26th
This card shows us how to express nurturance, to attend to our families and to express the protective energy within us towards others.

Six of Cups

What could be more fitting than the Six of Cups? Indeed I'm a very protective and nurturing person, so much that I have to hold myself back with my adult children. I'm a very loving aunt, too. I'm also very connected to the nostalgic aspect of this card, to my own childhood, my siblings and also ancestors. This is a perfect card for this card position, very encouraging - it tells me that I'm doing fine in that aspect of my life, and I'm glad for it.

This deck is so beautiful - I can't wait to find a spot where I can take better photos of this reading, it simply looks amazing, like a shimmering veil of translucent colours over a far-away light source.

[Nemia]

8. Birth of Freyja: - Dec 27th
This card points to issues of love, luck, artistic and creative expression and female wisdom.


Nine of Swords


Oh no, it's the Nine of Swords. Well, Freya has of course always been one of my favourite goddesses. In love, she has been very kind to me - I love my husband and he loves me, so I was lucky in that sense. Artistic and creative expression - I lack drive, ambition and self confidence, and although I studied art and write a lot, I have never liftend anything out of the personal, amateur sphere. I feel hedged in by my own laziness and unwillingness to follow through. The card is tough but totally honest. I keep myself back. I lie in bed sleepless at night, plagued by worries that paralyze me.

[Nemia]

9. Feast of Alcyone: - Dec 28th
This card gives us a personal inner message - one that speaks directly to our heart and spirit.


King of Swords


Oh dear, the King of Swords. One of the court cards that are really far away from me. Just a second. It's my third king. There's a message in this. And then - I know who the King of Swords is. It's the same beloved person that sends me regularly messages in my dreams. He is no longer alive with us but he still speaks to me, and not only me. He was an Aquarius, a most wonderful book-perfect Aquarius. I understood Aquarius through knowing him.

What would he tell me? I will ask him when I go to sleep. When I'm all awake and busy, I can't hear his voice. But he is close to me, always.

[Nemia]

10. Day of Nymphs - Dec 29th
This card encourages us to connect to our playful side, our inner child and how best to cultivate this aspect of ourselves.

The Hierophant

It's the Hierophant. I have a very very full day today so I'll need time to think about that card


Added later:

My inner child - so much part of me that I started writing a looong text about Tarot and the Inner Child, hoping to make it into a book one day but stuck right now......... and the Hierophant, my Taurus major, the card that I see in a friedly-but-critical way. For me, the Hierophant is the tradition and authority that I know well but I can't simply respect and accept it without making it really mine. And making it really mine means that I have to test it, to criticise it, to analyze it and to see how I function without it.

Actually, for me right now, it's my Christianity. Coming from a typical German Protestant family (bookish in every way), filled with pastors and Protestant work ethic, I couldn't simply take over the rituals and beliefs that I was taught as a child. For many years, I distanced myself very much from those Christian roots and beliefs, also because I moved into another culture where people live and believe differently. Always an eye opener.

Lately, I have begun to change again, finding my way back to my religious roots. I have enriched my spiritual life and deepened it by learning much about other beliefs, especially nature-based Pre-Christian religions. I'm still on my way.

Thinking about all these aspects and the importance this card has for me, also the importance nymphs and the Inner Child have for me, I think this card supports my ongoing inner search for a spiritual home, and encourages me to remain playful with it. Don't look for dogma, look for a spiritual place that feels like home. A parental divinity.

As a child, I found in a book about mythology the different nymphs that the Greeks believed in, and I was fascinated. Imagine seeing nymphs of all kinds, dryads and nereids and what not... I also loved the Muses and Horai and the other groups of girls. I loved Hestia and Hekate and Mnemosyne, and actually, I still do.

Maybe I should trust my feelings more. It's all metaphors after all, metaphors of the natural world and of ethic principles and feelings of connectedness.

I take the appearance of the Hierophant as a reassuring presence, a solid foundation for my beliefs. I don't have to repudiate my education any more, I can weave it all together. And my beliefs grow and change like the wonderful kind tree in the deck I chose. Roots and stem and branches and leaves to all directions, growing, changing. I think I'll put up this Hierophant on my eclectic altar for a while to remind me of this.

[Nemia]

11. Day of Rest: - Dec 30th
This card shows us how to walk our path in a relaxed and confident way....with the ability to deal with stressful situations in a philosophical, detached way.


Page of Wands


This card is nearly self-explaining in this reading. While I close the last year, this very difficult 2020, I'll be a keeper of my own inner flame. Curious, open to others, but also self-reliant. What a beautiful card. I don't know if I've ever seen a more beautiful Page of Wands.


12. New Year's Eve, Hogmanay - Dec 31st
This card shows us how to release the old and let in the new. This relates to both our external lives and our inner being.



Three of Cups


These three figures are like past, present and future, celebrating together the coming new year, reconciled for a precious moment.

[Nemia]

This was my whole reading. What a beauty this deck is. The whole reading looks from afar like an exotic flower. I'll have to return later to the last few cards, there's a lot of stress right now in this family (because of the lockdown) and I don't have the quiet mind that I need.

But just have a look.

The first three days.

the second quarter

the third quarter

the fourth quarter


And the whole circle: