Tomorrow, the last month of the year begins - December. Now is the time to gird your loins for our next seasonal group reading - and it's the Yule reading that started it all. If you want to know more about the history of this reading - here you'll find the story. This spread was not created by me but I'm deeply grateful to Linda J. Paul who did. (Raven of Summer wrote the Midsummer spread, and I added the Spring and Autumn Solstice spreads).
My own journey with these readings began in Midsummer 2017 and I did all six readings since then. It has enriched my spiritual life and brought insights - and a wonderful atmosphere. Knowing that so many other tarotists do the same reading with me while our planet passes a very special signpost - I can't tell you how much I enjoy that feeling. It's a feeling of connection to the tarot community. And for me, that's an even stronger argument for these readings than the insights themselves, connected to the multi-cultural special days that we celebrate together.
I'm not sure yet which deck to use - we all have some more days to think about it.
Copy the text of the reading, and on December 20, we'll all meet here and start the reading. Enjoy the late autumn/early winter here in the Northern hemisphere, and the opposite if you live on the Southern hemisphere, and may all your readings be blessed.
Here is the Sacred Days of Yule spread:
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.
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Sacred Days of Yule 2018 - December 20 - 31
Re: Sacred Days of Yule 2018 - December 20 - 31
Nemia's reading
deck: Pagan Otherworlds
I decided to use my relatively new Pagan Otherworlds deck. It's gorgeous and suits the season with its earthy colours and introvert faces.
I'm travelling and won't be able to write much or put up the pictures immediately.
ETA: I also caught an evil flu virus and my head is cotton wool. I'll write later when I'm clear again.
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.
Queen of Cups. One of the cards I feel strongly connected to. What a pity I can't remember my dreams - but I remember that they were good. I hope I'll remember over the course of the day....
I had some strong dreams lately, and they contained a message which I conveyed some days ago. The Queen of Cups is my empathic side and I needed all the empathy I could find in my heart.
This queen is looking at the waves, that's the unconscious and what's hidden beneath our surfaces and facades. I've always wanted to know more about lucid dreaming - and it may be time to try it.
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.
Nine of Swords. The worst-case scenario. I do have trouble connecting to the light within and always feel guilty for my happiness. I hope I'll find out tomorrow more about the inner resistance that makes me so pessimistic about my own life, fate and character...
But what a beautiful image.
Looking at it again - there's something within me that wants to be set free. I still depend emotionally on what people think about me, especially my family of origin. Shouldn't I break free of that need to fulfill their expectations? Shouldn't I celebrate a tarot coming-out?
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.
Six of Swords - changes. I hate changes but had to make some significant changes in my life. I carry with me the old leftovers, old fears, bad memories of the past. I try through shadow work to get rid of the old ghosts or integrate them in a meaningful way. This card encourages me to continue to do so - and embrace change without fear.
ETA: this card is echoed by the Four of Pentacles on my last day. I really resist change, and I should change that
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.
Hanged Man. I have to learn even more to see situations from more than one perspective, have to leave my comfort zone, accept that renewal means feeling uncomfortable.
This is one of the cards that seem to answer the description of the position
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.
Four of Wands. Stability, joy, celebration. Just what our Christmas Eve was about.
And thinking of my Christian education, I look at the castle and a voice begins to sing in my head: Ein' feste Burg ist unser Gott.... my good old Protestant education is still within me, and beneath many layers of distance, criticism, doubts and new insights, it still can teach me a thing or two about trust in the Divine, fate and others... and who tells me that? the Pagan Otherworlds Tarot!
6. Festival of Life, Christmas: - Dec 25th
This card shows us how to connect directly with Spirit.
Justice. Wonderful image.
This card actually continues the idea of yesterday - of the mighty castle of god that I put to the test. Justice weighs, Justice cuts, Justice doesn't take anything for granted. Justice is the Great Analyzer. And when I left the Protestantism of my youth, I did the same.
Now with Justice, I can LOSE faith. How can I WIN new faith with Justice? I'll have to find out how to do that.
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.
Five of Cups. A card of empty spaces, fears and sadness.
I think this card talks to me about accepting the empty nest, about letting go, about putting my old role as restless nurturer away and instead, wait what life has in store for me. All the protective energy that bubbles within me is NOT what my children need right now. They need liberty. I KNOW that. Why can't I feel it? That's why I have a Cups card. To FEEL that I have to step back, stop meddling, stop trying to improve life to make it fit for my precious children. They're adults. They make their beds, they lie in them, I can't shake their cushions any more. Sad, sad, sad. But fact.
8. Birth of Freyja: - Dec 27th
This card points to issues of love, luck, artistic and creative expression and female wisdom.
Ace of Cups. That's wonderful - an image of love and abundance.
Again, one card answers the next. What to do with all that love energy? Make art again, give love to others who need it, cherish the Age of the Crone that I have reached, embrace the third chapter of my life as lovingly as I greeted the earlier ones. There's enough energy and love there to start painting again, to seek opportunities to give love... what a wonderful wonderful card.
9. Feast of Alcyone: - Dec 28th
This card gives us a personal inner message - one that speaks directly to our heart and spirit.
The Hermit. I see the goddess Vesta in this image and I love it. I have to learn to stand alone, to seek my spiritual way alone, and continue to seek wisdom.
And the Hermit answers again to earlier cards. Spiritual journey - I came from the mighty castle of my Protestantism, analyzed and criticized it with the rational tools Justice gave me, but what she couldn't give me (faith), the Hermit can help find. And this card also takes up the theme of age, of being a crone, continuing the journey, seeking and wandering... this card really speaks to my heart and spirit.
I can't and won't be a Vestal Virgin - but I can be a Vestal crone...
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.
Strength. Wow, how can Strength connect me to my playful side? I really can't understand the message of this card... am I too weak and fearful to relax, play and have fun?
But looking at the card - Strength is playing with bear she should fear. What a card. The bear can easily become a playful, happy animal if Strength continues to treat him lightly, lovingly, playfully. That's a powerful combination of inner child and fear.
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.
Nine of Wands. I take this card as encouragement. It's the card of courage in adversity, it's exactly what the Day of Rest is all about.
Then, I see a crack in the ground. And I see that one of the wands is leaning down as though willing to bridge it. All these Wands look so alive. But maybe the crack doesn't have to be bridged? Maybe leaning a bit to the other side is enough?
Conflicts are stressful for me. Most stressful of all stress factors. How can I react like this wand? I should keep this image before me when conflicts arise.
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.
Four of Pentacles. Now that's a fun card. I like it although it's not too popular. I like the number 4 in general, and I also like the dear old Pentacles. The 4 Pents. is a card for me - stable, a bit stubborn, the Taurus character in all its immoveable, infuriating glory
I won't release the old and will let in the new only grudgingly. I'll continue to cherish what I cherish, guard my loved ones and resist change. I know that about myself.
But this card also tells me: we know you are the 4 Pentacles anyway, so why not relax a bit and accept changes and be a bit more flexible?
I must say that this reading has been powerful. I'm going through the whole 12 cards now again and again. It's the last hour before the calendar changes and a New Year begins. These cards are very very strong. I didn't know how much. I'm glad I listened to everybody and bought them! They have magic inside them.
deck: Pagan Otherworlds
I decided to use my relatively new Pagan Otherworlds deck. It's gorgeous and suits the season with its earthy colours and introvert faces.
I'm travelling and won't be able to write much or put up the pictures immediately.
ETA: I also caught an evil flu virus and my head is cotton wool. I'll write later when I'm clear again.
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.
Queen of Cups. One of the cards I feel strongly connected to. What a pity I can't remember my dreams - but I remember that they were good. I hope I'll remember over the course of the day....
I had some strong dreams lately, and they contained a message which I conveyed some days ago. The Queen of Cups is my empathic side and I needed all the empathy I could find in my heart.
This queen is looking at the waves, that's the unconscious and what's hidden beneath our surfaces and facades. I've always wanted to know more about lucid dreaming - and it may be time to try it.
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.
Nine of Swords. The worst-case scenario. I do have trouble connecting to the light within and always feel guilty for my happiness. I hope I'll find out tomorrow more about the inner resistance that makes me so pessimistic about my own life, fate and character...
But what a beautiful image.
Looking at it again - there's something within me that wants to be set free. I still depend emotionally on what people think about me, especially my family of origin. Shouldn't I break free of that need to fulfill their expectations? Shouldn't I celebrate a tarot coming-out?
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.
Six of Swords - changes. I hate changes but had to make some significant changes in my life. I carry with me the old leftovers, old fears, bad memories of the past. I try through shadow work to get rid of the old ghosts or integrate them in a meaningful way. This card encourages me to continue to do so - and embrace change without fear.
ETA: this card is echoed by the Four of Pentacles on my last day. I really resist change, and I should change that
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.
Hanged Man. I have to learn even more to see situations from more than one perspective, have to leave my comfort zone, accept that renewal means feeling uncomfortable.
This is one of the cards that seem to answer the description of the position
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.
Four of Wands. Stability, joy, celebration. Just what our Christmas Eve was about.
And thinking of my Christian education, I look at the castle and a voice begins to sing in my head: Ein' feste Burg ist unser Gott.... my good old Protestant education is still within me, and beneath many layers of distance, criticism, doubts and new insights, it still can teach me a thing or two about trust in the Divine, fate and others... and who tells me that? the Pagan Otherworlds Tarot!
6. Festival of Life, Christmas: - Dec 25th
This card shows us how to connect directly with Spirit.
Justice. Wonderful image.
This card actually continues the idea of yesterday - of the mighty castle of god that I put to the test. Justice weighs, Justice cuts, Justice doesn't take anything for granted. Justice is the Great Analyzer. And when I left the Protestantism of my youth, I did the same.
Now with Justice, I can LOSE faith. How can I WIN new faith with Justice? I'll have to find out how to do that.
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.
Five of Cups. A card of empty spaces, fears and sadness.
I think this card talks to me about accepting the empty nest, about letting go, about putting my old role as restless nurturer away and instead, wait what life has in store for me. All the protective energy that bubbles within me is NOT what my children need right now. They need liberty. I KNOW that. Why can't I feel it? That's why I have a Cups card. To FEEL that I have to step back, stop meddling, stop trying to improve life to make it fit for my precious children. They're adults. They make their beds, they lie in them, I can't shake their cushions any more. Sad, sad, sad. But fact.
8. Birth of Freyja: - Dec 27th
This card points to issues of love, luck, artistic and creative expression and female wisdom.
Ace of Cups. That's wonderful - an image of love and abundance.
Again, one card answers the next. What to do with all that love energy? Make art again, give love to others who need it, cherish the Age of the Crone that I have reached, embrace the third chapter of my life as lovingly as I greeted the earlier ones. There's enough energy and love there to start painting again, to seek opportunities to give love... what a wonderful wonderful card.
9. Feast of Alcyone: - Dec 28th
This card gives us a personal inner message - one that speaks directly to our heart and spirit.
The Hermit. I see the goddess Vesta in this image and I love it. I have to learn to stand alone, to seek my spiritual way alone, and continue to seek wisdom.
And the Hermit answers again to earlier cards. Spiritual journey - I came from the mighty castle of my Protestantism, analyzed and criticized it with the rational tools Justice gave me, but what she couldn't give me (faith), the Hermit can help find. And this card also takes up the theme of age, of being a crone, continuing the journey, seeking and wandering... this card really speaks to my heart and spirit.
I can't and won't be a Vestal Virgin - but I can be a Vestal crone...
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.
Strength. Wow, how can Strength connect me to my playful side? I really can't understand the message of this card... am I too weak and fearful to relax, play and have fun?
But looking at the card - Strength is playing with bear she should fear. What a card. The bear can easily become a playful, happy animal if Strength continues to treat him lightly, lovingly, playfully. That's a powerful combination of inner child and fear.
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.
Nine of Wands. I take this card as encouragement. It's the card of courage in adversity, it's exactly what the Day of Rest is all about.
Then, I see a crack in the ground. And I see that one of the wands is leaning down as though willing to bridge it. All these Wands look so alive. But maybe the crack doesn't have to be bridged? Maybe leaning a bit to the other side is enough?
Conflicts are stressful for me. Most stressful of all stress factors. How can I react like this wand? I should keep this image before me when conflicts arise.
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.
Four of Pentacles. Now that's a fun card. I like it although it's not too popular. I like the number 4 in general, and I also like the dear old Pentacles. The 4 Pents. is a card for me - stable, a bit stubborn, the Taurus character in all its immoveable, infuriating glory
I won't release the old and will let in the new only grudgingly. I'll continue to cherish what I cherish, guard my loved ones and resist change. I know that about myself.
But this card also tells me: we know you are the 4 Pentacles anyway, so why not relax a bit and accept changes and be a bit more flexible?
I must say that this reading has been powerful. I'm going through the whole 12 cards now again and again. It's the last hour before the calendar changes and a New Year begins. These cards are very very strong. I didn't know how much. I'm glad I listened to everybody and bought them! They have magic inside them.
- img_20190102_075537.783.jpg (57.78 KiB) Viewed 4307 times
Re: Sacred Days of Yule 2018 - December 20 - 31
Deck: Promethean Oracle
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.
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.
Start strong
End stronger
End stronger
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Joan Marie
- Forum Designer
- Sage
- Posts: 5306
- Joined: 22 Apr 2018, 21:52
Re: Sacred Days of Yule 2018 - December 20 - 31
I'm so ready for for this! Really looking forward to it. I have an idea of the deck I want to use but we'll see in the meantime if anything else pops up!
Right now I am leaning toward my current deck crush which is The Spolia Tarot. It comes with extra cards for the astrology signs and the 4 elements so I may try and work out a way to use those for this Sacred days of Yule reading.
Right now I am leaning toward my current deck crush which is The Spolia Tarot. It comes with extra cards for the astrology signs and the 4 elements so I may try and work out a way to use those for this Sacred days of Yule reading.
Button Soup Tarot, Star & Crown Oracle available @: Rabbit's Moon Tarot 
-
chiscotheque
- Sage
- Posts: 488
- Joined: 18 May 2018, 13:49
Re: Sacred Days of Yule 2018 - December 20 - 31
Sacred Days of Yule
deck: The Charles Dickens Tarot
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.
Card: 5 of Fire - John Jasper
John Jasper is both Edwin Drood's uncle and guardian and the music master to his nephew's fiance, Rosa Bud. This places him in a dilemma, as he inwardly lusts after the latter and despises the former. As the choirmaster of Cloisterham Cathedral and a respected man of the community, this conflict splinters Jasper at the very seams. It may account for his addiction to opium and the dream world he escapes to as solace for his divided self.
The Mystery of Edwin Drood is the unfinished novel Dickens was working on at the time of his death. This death and unfinishedness is suggestive of the end of the agrarian cycle and the onset of winter, where the fire goes underground as it were, as did Persephone. These are allusions to the Eleusinian Mysteries, as is the botanically named Rosa Bud, seen on the Charles Dickens Tarot Moon card - the natural card of dreams. It's unclear if Jasper took to opium as respite from his conflicted soul or if his love-hate tug-of-war was the product of his opium dreams. What is clear is the pious, respectable world Jasper inhabits has caused the Eleusinian seed planted inside him to moulder, becoming ingrown and seedy. The macabre image of Drood's body slowly smouldering away from the corrosive effects of quicklime in the catacombs beneath Cloisterham Cathedral can be seen then as a nightmarish male parody of Persephone and Demeter. Many Dickens fans have tried their hand at dreaming up conclusions for the incomplete Drood, the more outlandish and fantastical the better, even though - or perhaps for this very reason - Jasper is obviously Drood's murderer. Some posit the basis of Jasper's inner strife is homosexual in nature (what the Victorians called inversion), his "love" of Rosa being the unhealthy transference of his love for his nephew, Edwin.
On a personal level, I read this card as the interruption of a dream, the dying embers of a certain constellation of dreams. The world of escape and drugs have grown nightmarish. Youthful ideals, like Edwin and Rosa's betrothal, have been outgrown. To hold onto them, to lock them away, is to fuel the fire of discord and self-destruction. The light, the germ, and the wakening is - in Jungian terms - Individuation, where the human psyche sprouts from the inherited dream of the undifferentiated unconscious through the psychic process of life experienced. A psyche impeded, half-baked, and otherwise lost in a mirage of imago, idyll, and ideation, becomes the self-imposed hostage of a personal Hades.
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.
Card: 5 of Earth - Bob Cratchit & Tiny Tim
Well, the characters on this card and the situation therein don't demand too much expository preamble, since almost everyone recognizes them from A Christmas Carol. That they are the ragged, crippled figures from the RWS 5 of Pentacles is also fairly obvious. Here, father and son are outside the walls of what could be called a modern-day church - a bank. This, along with the bobby in the distance observing their tramp, symbolize the material comforts denied them. Nevertheless, as we know, the Cratchit family are models of enduring, being grateful for what they have, and sharing in the commerce of love rather than worldly wealth. And no member is more naturally gifted in this than Tiny Tim - the youngest of the clan, whose hardship is the greatest.
Here, on the 5 of Earth card, father and son I perceive are heading home - Bob with the buoyancy of humility and compassion, Tim with the pluck of youthful sincerity and the virtue of innocence, doing honour - as the name Timothy means - to God. Tim's eyes look forward while his father's eyes look timidly at the reader - neither look covetously or resentfully at the bank. With today's solicitation - how to best connect with the light within & without - the 5 of Earth's suggestion seems clear: rather than dissipating one's energy dwelling on how one goes without, kindle the love that lives within. One's heart is one's hearth - share it; through gratitude comes grace. Our sun, Sol, is the centre of our universe, giving light in the dark and warmth in the cold; let's allow our centre, our soul, to be as charitable - even when, like today the solstice, it is farthest away.
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.
Card: 3 of Water - The Crummles Strolling Players
With today's question - what holds us back from following our dreams - and the Hebrew word Beth - meaning "house" - the 3 of Water card houses a number of ironies. The novel is Nicholas Nickleby, one of Dickens' earliest, with Nicholas clearly a version of the young author. Avoiding the harsh realities of London and his uncle, Nicholas joins a traveling theatre troupe and there - in what in some ways is the opposite of a house - finds a home. He quickly becomes a great success at gussying-up middling French plays for the provincial English stage and playing the heartsick lead in Romeo & Juliet, but when his sister and mother run into trouble, Nicholas abandons the Crummles and rushes to his family's aid.
Designed as a humorous interlude in the novel, it nevertheless reflects Dickens' first passion: the stage. If it hadn't been for an incapacitating flu and his sudden success as a creative writer, Dickens was all set to follow that passion - the dream to be a great actor and impresario - a dream which may very well have come true, thereby denying the world of Dickens the novelist. As it happened, Dickens acted throughout his life, wrote and produced plays - even managing front of house - and maintained his own amateur acting troupe. Indeed, the stage is where he met the future love of his life, Ellen Ternan, curiously presaged in Nickleby and the 3 of Water card in the Crummles' daughter: The Infant Phenomenon. Ellen had been a child actress, actually being billed as an "infant phenomenon".
For all his love of everything theatrical, Dickens was not a skilled playwright. If he had been able to fulfill his dream, he would've been denied his true calling as a writer of some of the world's best known fictional characters, not to mention his role as social critic - the impact of which was immeasurable on the lives and mindset of every stratum of Victorian society. As much as Dickens felt the kinship and loved the fellowship of the theatre's motley group of misfits, his inner desire for prestige, popularity, and a home life led him outwardly away from this dream. While Dickens kept his dream alive when not writing and larded his novels with a theatricality quite to the public's delight, these outward gains eventually became for him a jail. He became stereo-typed in a role of his own making, and was only able to break free from it by improvising and acting out a false persona for his audience.
On a personal level, the inner force that holds me back from following certain dreams may be a need or predilection for structure - beth. The entertaining allure of the exaggerated and offbeat characters who people the Crummles Strolling Players may reflect a youthful fascination, but it's one which doesn't sustain. Certainly, and simply, a major impediment to the realization of my otherwise dogged enterprising is a mortifying case of stage fright. Where Dickens was a natural performer, I am the personification of performance anxiety and shun few things more than the spotlight.
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.
Card: 5 of Air - Thomas Gradgrind
the 3rd 5 of 4 - unusual. Generally speaking, 5s indicate conflict, Hard Times indeed. Here, the school superintendent and later MP Thomas Gradgrind seems to signify order, stability, and concord. And he does - taken to an absurd extreme. His exaggerated Utilitarianism is not only totally impractical, but it deforms the brains and degrades the souls of his students; notably, his own children Thomas and Louisa.
Because of his adamant allegiance to pragmatism and profit at the expense of the imagination and pleasure, Gradgrind gradually grinds down the psyches of all who fall into his orbit. As a result, his son Tom becomes a gambler and thief, while his daughter Louisa is imprisoned in a loveless marriage, contemplates adultery, and - in a state of utter desolation - induces her father finally to see the error of his ways. Gradgrind, then, is that unique thing in a Dickens novel and in real life - someone whose character undergoes a fundamental change. With his attitude and behaviour enlightened, he becomes a much better man and father, for which he naturally suffers the ridicule and ostracization of his peers - the distinguished Victorian gentlemen of the House of Parliament.
With today's solicitation to seek purification and renewal, I hope - unlike Gradgrind's family - those around me aren't driven to enmity and despair before I recognize the error of my ways. That said, I have grown more uptight, authoritative, and impatient as I've aged, all at the expense of happiness - my own and those around me. Blockheaded adherence to fact is radically unsatisfactory. Rather, the acceptance and embrace of everything human allows for the communion between people essential for emotional health and spiritual growth. In turn, this engagement opens one up to the animal and plant kingdoms and the greater world as a whole. Instead of improving their lot, the demands and criticisms I make of others only alienate them which, in turn, alienates me. Dwelling in the heart rather than the head may help me to remain generous of spirit and remember it is I who needs help and instruction, not them.
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.
Card: Mother of Water - Clara Peggotty
David Copperfield's Peggotty is the most open-hearted, nurturing character in The Charles Dickens Tarot; she is the mother of all the Mother cards in the deck. A model of unconditional love, she also supplies and so represents the solid emotional grounding which allows a child to grow with confidence into adulthood. Her stabilizing effect facilitated David's dreams of becoming a famous writer. Having no dark side herself to speak of, the shadow aspect of this card is represented by David's actual mother, who accordingly shares Peggotty's Christian Name: Clara. Mrs. Copperfield loved her son, but unlike Peggotty, her temperament and social position were fragile. In male-dominated Victorian England, David's widowed mother believed her marriage to Mr. Murdstone would be the best thing for her and her son. Instead, not only was it the death of her, but it forced David down the hard road to becoming a man. Like Christ, David Copperfield's paternity was uncertain. With today the ultimate day of the Virgin Mary's parturition - albeit symbolically - this is both the accumulated moment of everything that came before and the great promise of what is to come. With this in mind, I decided to pull a second card...
Card: The Hermit IX Philip Pirrip
Well, this as it turns out is the most complicated card in the CDT deck; to extrapolate on it in full would take until Christmas. Some of the key ideas germane to today's allocation: Like young Copperfield, Pip is an orphan who knows nothing of his heritage. On the card's left - the past - stands a church with a graveyard as the sun sets, while on the right in the future shines a full moon above the sea; Pip in the center is the eternal now, the hinge between what was and what will be. In his lantern, which Pip both protects and warms his mitts on, is the union of opposites - the male sun and the female moon, the inward and the out. He is the son, who becomes a man the hard way - through the complete revaluation of his expectations of what real love and family are. Here he is a boy, but his arms are those of a man. Pip is overwrought with self-pity, and is indeed pitiable. His future is shadowy and unknown, but he must embrace the dark, the secret, and the mutable if he is to outgrow his illusions and inborn sense of disgrace. In the end, fire will engulf his false mother, water will drown the evil which infects his story, and the sea will carry him to the cradle of the cradle of Western Civilization - Pip's flight into Egypt. The name Mary in Hebrew means "bitterness" and cognates with the Latin mare meaning "sea", suggesting the false cognate nightmare. Mariology centers on the maternal - pity, devotion, redemption, and grace. I will try to center myself on these gifts today, and in the coming days spent with family.
6. Festival of Life, Christmas: - Dec 25th
This card shows us how to connect directly with Spirit.
Card: Mother of Earth - Amy Dorrit
Amy Dorrit - affectionately called "Little Dorrit" - is a bridge. Here, on the Mother of Earth card, she stands half on a bridge and half in the Marshalsea debtor's prison. Born in prison, she grew to a young woman in the Marshalsea, although many still consider her a child due to her small stature and deferential manner. She and her family have been made criminals because of her father's inability to pay a small debt. Allowed to leave the prison by day, Little Dorrit works as a maid to provide for her father and family. Her father, William Dorrit [cf. 4 of Air] is infirm and penniless, yet retains a fragile air of nobility. When he inherits a small fortune, the Dorrit family go from rags to riches overnight, and they all indulge in their newfound status and luxury - all save Little Dorrit, who remains the same sincere, unaffected woman she's always been. When the man she secretly admires is himself imprisoned in the Marshalsea, she sacrifices all her resources to save him.
Little Dorrit is both child and mother, seemingly the weakest person in the novel but in actuality the strongest. In a world built of deceit, illusion, cruelty, and false divisions, she embodies the spirit of humility, generosity, guilelessness, and grace. With today's direction, "how to connect directly with Spirit", the suggested aim is to remain humble and persevering, see things for what they are not what they proclaim to be, give even in poverty, and foster the emancipating riches of the heart rather than the imprisoning world of Maya. A precept apropos Christmas day, its downright mangy origins spoiled by consumerism. "Man is born free, but he is everywhere in chains." The incarceration of incarnation, a reality of life worsened by men's attitudes and actions, the delivery from which the birth of Christ is symbol.
Out of curiosity, I pulled another card just to see what it would be - if it would reinforce the Little Dorrit card, contradict it, or just be nonsense. I pulled Strength
Still curious, I wondered what the opposite of Little Dorrit would be, her shadow as it were. I pulled Mother of Fire - Miss Havisham
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.
Card: The Devil XV Poverty
The Devil card pulled with the solicitation to express nurturance may seem odd - it would with the RWS deck at any rate, but less so with the CDT. The closest thing to a physical devil character on this card is Fagin, the red-haired miserly kidsman (an adult who recruits children into criminal gangs) of London's Victorian-era underworld. As with the walrus and the carpenter, there's been much debate to determine who was the more evil, Bill Sikes or Fagin - Sikes being a heartless brute but Fagin arguably more inhuman precisely because he possessed a trace of humanity. In the end, of course, both ate as many oysters as they could get. Much has also been made of Fagin's Jewishness, and while the devil we know originated in Jewish legend, Western Civilization has done its darnedest to shape that devil in its own image. Opposite "the Jew" (as the novel repeatedly calls him), less adversary than Fagin's compatriot in adversity, sits Oliver Twist, the orphaned innocent in a world of hardship and cruelty. Oliver is what Fagin and Sikes once were, and they what Oliver is on the path to becoming. Here, it will be remembered, the Devil is Poverty, not a person. Societal disparity leads directly to despair, suffering, and criminality. The greed of the haves creates the so-called evil of the have-nots. Without compassion and generosity of the spirit - the kind afforded within a family - even what little the defenseless, the infirm, the least among us have, that too shall be taken away. Not by God, or Providence, but by us.
The faceless figure in the card's center reveals the two ragged children shown to Scrooge near the end of A Christmas Carol. The boy is Ignorance and the girl is Want. On the boy's brow is written Doom, "unless the writing be erased." Unless we understand that all humanity is a family which needs protection, purpose, and a share in the greater prosperity, we will continue to be conquered by our own divide. Making devils of what we deem other - be it the poor, the young, "the Jew" - engenders dissolution, pain, and the indenture of all. Shining light on the dark dirty secret of the division of peoples is the soul of the true authority, the Golden Rule: loving the other as oneself. When whatever you do to the least of these brothers and sisters, you do to me, the me in this case - as in all cases - is you. And the you is me.
8. Birth of Freyja: - Dec 27th
This card points to issues of love, luck, artistic and creative expression and female wisdom.
Card: The Weal of Fortune X
This card certainly concerns luck. The novel it revolves around, Barnaby Rudge, was set to be Dickens' first, but due to other obligations, it became the author's fifth instead - luckily, for had Rudge been the young novelist's introduction to the public, he may never have written another book again. While Rudge was mostly ignored, it's biggest influence came through it's central female character, Dolly Varden. Today's dedication to Freyja is apt for Dolly, since both were what could be called party-girls (one of Freyja's names is Mardöll). Dolly Varden had a style of dress named after her, inspired songs and musicals, became a kind of cake, and the namesake of a species of trout. The raven below the X of the mechanical timepiece at the card's core is Grip, Barnaby Rudge's pet and the novel's familiar. The bird was based on Dicken's real-life pet crow, and it so impressed Edgar Allen Poe that he actually got a Grip - purchasing the taxidermied corvid and penning his poem The Raven. Rudge was also the literary inspiration for Dostoyevsky's The Idiot.
The CDT's alt-title for the RWS Wheel of Fortune card is The Weal of Fortune, an allusion to the societal themes of poverty, class, and religion in the novel and its historical basis. Certainly, Dickens' concern for the plight of the underclass suffused his work with artistic strength and merit. May Day celebrations, with its May Day pole dancing and May Day queen seen on the right of the Weal of Fortune card, was a pagan ritual beloved by the people and Queen Elizabeth I, yet she was compelled by her Protestant privy council to outlaw it. Along with the novel's riots and military reaction, these ideas allude to the clamp-down on creative expression endemic to England's history. Dickens himself managed to avenge a private grudge in Rudge by naming the mansion which burns to the ground The Warren - a symbol of Warren's blacking factory where he slaved as a boy.
This Weal of Fortune card suggests chaos, manipulation, and plodding mechanics all at once, where the intended is a misstep and the accidental perfectly fits. With today's allocation, this may suggest Freyja's role as völva, a Norse magician involved in determining the course of Fate. To that end, I will try to stay aware of the seemingly accidental today and in the coming year, to acknowledge where stubborn attempts at human intent are fruitless and where chance and mishap reveal an otherwise hidden path.
9. Feast of Alcyone: - Dec 28th
This card gives us a personal inner message - one that speaks directly to our heart and spirit.
Card: Son of Water - David Copperfield
The Son of Water is the Knight of Cups in RWS terminology. David Copperfield - a character almost everyone knows - is a stand-in for Charles Dickens himself, become the hero of his own story. Here, on the CDT card, is the pre-adolescent David, his image captured in a locket encompassed by his mother's hair - a sentimental Victorian mode of keepsake. In the background is a field at night - one of the desolate places young David slept rough on his trek from his indenture at Warren's Blacking factory in London to his Great-Aunt, Betsey Trotwood, in Kent. This was a route Dickens would come to know well in his later years, as he traveled it back and forth from his home at Gad's Hill to the house of his secret mistress, Ellen Ternan.
David, of course, is the focus of the novel, with all things revolving around him; this being the nature of subjectivity, wherein each of us is the hero - or perhaps anti-hero - of our own story. For everyone else, David can be frustrating - as with his ridiculous marriage to Dora Spenlow - and embarrassing - as with his blind adoration of the scoundrel, James Steerforth - and even something of a bore when compared to the colourful characters who orbit him - Wilkins Micawber, Mr. Dick, Rosa Dartle, the Peggottys, Uriah Heep. Really, it is the people who comprise the extended family around the orphaned David who make his story so memorable and beloved, even as without him, the author, we wouldn't have the story.
Water is the suit I feel innately akin with. I am a Pisces, my partner is Scorpio, my mother is Cancer, and many of the friends in my life have been water signs. Being an only child, and living in close proximity to my parents, facilitates for me an easy affinity with the role of son. Perhaps it is a role I am in danger of sentimentalizing? one I need to grow out of or run away from like David did the blacking factory? or perhaps I need to recognize the extended family surrounding me who allow me to be the hero of my own story, their influence good or bad, and give them the appreciation due.
To get a clearer understanding of today's allocation of a personal inner message, I decided to pull 2 cards: one for the heart, and one for the spirit. The first card I pulled was The Ace of Water
The emotional significance of this card vis-a-vis the heart seems self-evident. In the CDT, Water on the Ace is symbolized by the Thames River, its Brittonic Celtic name meaning dark and in Victorian times frequently referred to as Isis - mother goddess of creation, magic, wisdom, death, & resurrection. Water itself symbolizes love, feeling, fertility, bounty, fidelity, the subconscious, and the benevolent creative wellspring.
The second card I pulled for spirit was 9 of Fire - Abel Magwitch
Magwitch is the convict from Great Expectations whom another orphan - Pip - aids in the marshes of the Medway in Kent. Unbeknownst to Pip, Magwitch becomes his benefactor as Pip meantime goes astray under the influence of Miss Havisham, Estella, and the snares of affluence and prestige. Like a soul, Magwitch is caged, but like a Guardian Angel Magwitch is able to convey to the wayward Pip the false-front of the world, help him see beneath its facade to the realities underlying it, thereby enabling him to value only those things of true worth.
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.
Card: The Lovers VI
With today's upbeat theme, I half wondered if I wasn't about to pull the 10 of Air - Bill Sikes card. Instead of that ironic card, I pulled the apposite Lovers. My lover happens to be staying with me over the holidays, and we are set to make a small getaway in a couple of days as a break from all the familial Christmas duties. The Lovers card depicts the young Charles Dickens and his new bride Catharine Hogarth dressed as the lead characters from Romeo & Juliet. These portraits were made by the couple's friend Daniel Maclise, with the one of Charles being used as frontispiece for Nicholas Nickleby.
On the left, Friar Laurence is played by Vincent Crummles (coincidently, Lawrence is my lover's last name). As seen on the 3 of Water card [Dec. 22 above], Nicholas Nickleby joined the Crummles Strolling Players and made a splash playing Romeo. Like Nickleby, Dickens loved the theatre, putting on amateur productions at home using members of his family, including his wife Catharine. Here, Juliet's mother, Lady Capulet, is played by Catharine's mother, Georgina Hogarth.
With today's playful allocation, The Lovers card suggests a few things, all of which are fairly straightforward. Foremost, of course, is the indulgence in matters amorous. There is also the idea that all the world's a stage - we are playing parts in a play, so may as well have as much fun with it as we can. The dark side of this is we are people underneath the roles we are assigned, and must keep distinct the person and the persona. Eventually, dissatisfied with his home life, Dickens threw himself into his work in a prolonged act of avoidance. Along with passion, The Lovers is a card of choice and responsibility. Just as all work and no play is dull, so is all play and no work - a balance must be struck, then, between fidelity and playing house and a person's individual identity. The way Dickens involved his wife and family in his love of theatre - literally building a theatre in their home - is symbol of this union between affection and affectation, performance and being oneself, and the often conflicting obligations had between the ego and the affianced other.
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.
Card: Father of Water - Joe Gargery
Joes Gargery is a simple blacksmith - he hammers together unwieldy things. He is one of the biggest-hearted characters in all of Dickens, and one of the humblest. He is Pip's uncle in Great Expectations, but his role is more of a father figure - in fact, it's also that of a mother figure, his love for the boy being unconditional. When his wife is paralyzed, Joe patiently nurses her. When Pip, grown snobbish with wealth and privilege and embarrassed of his humble beginnings, is rude to Joe, Joe discreetly exits Pip's life. Not a rich man, he nevertheless quietly pays all of Pips debts before leaving. In the end, Joe marries the honest and good-natured Biddy, the country school teacher Pip himself should've courted rather than the cold-hearted Estella.
With today's card showing us how to deal with stress philosophically, the Father of Water is a character who is often out of his depths, just barely treading water in the deep end. Joe is a big strong man, but he never uses it to leverage advantage. Instead, he is highly compassionate and first and foremost, forgiving. When the convicts escape at the beginning of the novel, and everyone else is concerned for their own safety, Joe is occupied with the welfare of the prisoners. His kindness and generosity are a model of grace. Unlike the book's protagonist Pip, Joe's integrity is rewarded at the end of Great Expectations with a loving wife and family. Joe's great skill is humility, buoyed with honesty and compassion. His shadow side is sorrow, the sadness which is real life rather than the vainglory and empty allure of our ego's expectations.
Curious as to what this card's opposite would be - and, frankly, if the cards which have been so fitting so far would continue to be - I pulled the 9 of Air - Lady Dedlock.
Lady Dedlock is a character who has been kept from loving and so from living. She abandoned the child she had out of wedlock (the 1 remaining Water court card not yet drawn, Daughter of Water - Esther Summerson) and, living by society's rules rather than the rules of her own heart, she married a man of wealth and prestige old enough to be her father. Her outside world is gilt, her inner world is guilt. Hating herself, she has tried to be in everything resigned, but rather than apathetic, she seethes with resentment and shame. Her name - Honoria Dedlock - says it all. She is without question a cautionary tale; an excellent example of how not to walk one's path in a confident and 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.
Card: The High Priestess II Ellen Ternan
For 13 years, Ellen Ternan maintained a secret love affair with Charles Dickens. When he died suddenly, she disappeared into obscurity. When she emerged years later, she was 13 years younger - or at least claimed to be. Certainly her new husband, clergyman George Robinson, believed she was 24 rather than 37. When he eventually discovered the truth of her past with Dickens, he suffered a nervous breakdown from which he never recovered.
At first, Nelly's relationship with Dickens was platonic. When she finally succumbed to his advances, she felt shame. The covertness of the affair made her a kept woman. For a time she lived in France where she bore Dickens a boy; the child did not live long. Returning to England along with her mother and Dickens, Nelly was aboard a train that crashed in what became known as the Staplehurst disaster (cf. The Tower card). These traumas underscored her own sense of crime and punishment, even though it was in essence society's prejudices which kept her relationship with Dickens illicit and society's verdict on that relationship as sin which haunted her.
With today's year-end solicitation, to let go the old and welcome the new, Nelly Ternan is a model of nimbleness and renewal, both on the mundane plain and the intangible. Outliving Dickens by many years, she never jeopardized his reputation by revealing publicly her critical role in his life. Faced with an uncertain future, she completely reinvented herself to Victorian era standards. She maintained close bonds with her own mother and sisters, as well as a lifelong friendship with Dickens' sister-in-law, Georgina Hogarth, and his daughter, Kate Perugini. Within herself, she knew the truth and value of the love she shared with the great author, and kept its secret as a hidden source of solace. Outwardly, she steeled herself, her mettle an alloy; along with solace came indignity - the former she used as balm, the latter as incentive.
Much of the Charles Dickens Tarot turns on this card, Ellen Ternan being - although unseen - a major and pervasive influence in Dickens' later life. In 2019, when I turn 50, my partner of 11 years [a Scorpio] is coming to live with me [a Pisces], which will also affect the family dynamic here, where my parents also reside [my mother being a Cancer]. Associated with emotions and spirit essentially, the zodiacal water signs generally, and issues concerning the female side of ourselves, The High Priestess - always an important card for me - stands as both a well-spring and incentive for the coming year - a year which promises much change.
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deck: The Charles Dickens Tarot
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.
John Jasper is both Edwin Drood's uncle and guardian and the music master to his nephew's fiance, Rosa Bud. This places him in a dilemma, as he inwardly lusts after the latter and despises the former. As the choirmaster of Cloisterham Cathedral and a respected man of the community, this conflict splinters Jasper at the very seams. It may account for his addiction to opium and the dream world he escapes to as solace for his divided self.
The Mystery of Edwin Drood is the unfinished novel Dickens was working on at the time of his death. This death and unfinishedness is suggestive of the end of the agrarian cycle and the onset of winter, where the fire goes underground as it were, as did Persephone. These are allusions to the Eleusinian Mysteries, as is the botanically named Rosa Bud, seen on the Charles Dickens Tarot Moon card - the natural card of dreams. It's unclear if Jasper took to opium as respite from his conflicted soul or if his love-hate tug-of-war was the product of his opium dreams. What is clear is the pious, respectable world Jasper inhabits has caused the Eleusinian seed planted inside him to moulder, becoming ingrown and seedy. The macabre image of Drood's body slowly smouldering away from the corrosive effects of quicklime in the catacombs beneath Cloisterham Cathedral can be seen then as a nightmarish male parody of Persephone and Demeter. Many Dickens fans have tried their hand at dreaming up conclusions for the incomplete Drood, the more outlandish and fantastical the better, even though - or perhaps for this very reason - Jasper is obviously Drood's murderer. Some posit the basis of Jasper's inner strife is homosexual in nature (what the Victorians called inversion), his "love" of Rosa being the unhealthy transference of his love for his nephew, Edwin.
On a personal level, I read this card as the interruption of a dream, the dying embers of a certain constellation of dreams. The world of escape and drugs have grown nightmarish. Youthful ideals, like Edwin and Rosa's betrothal, have been outgrown. To hold onto them, to lock them away, is to fuel the fire of discord and self-destruction. The light, the germ, and the wakening is - in Jungian terms - Individuation, where the human psyche sprouts from the inherited dream of the undifferentiated unconscious through the psychic process of life experienced. A psyche impeded, half-baked, and otherwise lost in a mirage of imago, idyll, and ideation, becomes the self-imposed hostage of a personal Hades.
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.
Well, the characters on this card and the situation therein don't demand too much expository preamble, since almost everyone recognizes them from A Christmas Carol. That they are the ragged, crippled figures from the RWS 5 of Pentacles is also fairly obvious. Here, father and son are outside the walls of what could be called a modern-day church - a bank. This, along with the bobby in the distance observing their tramp, symbolize the material comforts denied them. Nevertheless, as we know, the Cratchit family are models of enduring, being grateful for what they have, and sharing in the commerce of love rather than worldly wealth. And no member is more naturally gifted in this than Tiny Tim - the youngest of the clan, whose hardship is the greatest.
Here, on the 5 of Earth card, father and son I perceive are heading home - Bob with the buoyancy of humility and compassion, Tim with the pluck of youthful sincerity and the virtue of innocence, doing honour - as the name Timothy means - to God. Tim's eyes look forward while his father's eyes look timidly at the reader - neither look covetously or resentfully at the bank. With today's solicitation - how to best connect with the light within & without - the 5 of Earth's suggestion seems clear: rather than dissipating one's energy dwelling on how one goes without, kindle the love that lives within. One's heart is one's hearth - share it; through gratitude comes grace. Our sun, Sol, is the centre of our universe, giving light in the dark and warmth in the cold; let's allow our centre, our soul, to be as charitable - even when, like today the solstice, it is farthest away.
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.
With today's question - what holds us back from following our dreams - and the Hebrew word Beth - meaning "house" - the 3 of Water card houses a number of ironies. The novel is Nicholas Nickleby, one of Dickens' earliest, with Nicholas clearly a version of the young author. Avoiding the harsh realities of London and his uncle, Nicholas joins a traveling theatre troupe and there - in what in some ways is the opposite of a house - finds a home. He quickly becomes a great success at gussying-up middling French plays for the provincial English stage and playing the heartsick lead in Romeo & Juliet, but when his sister and mother run into trouble, Nicholas abandons the Crummles and rushes to his family's aid.
Designed as a humorous interlude in the novel, it nevertheless reflects Dickens' first passion: the stage. If it hadn't been for an incapacitating flu and his sudden success as a creative writer, Dickens was all set to follow that passion - the dream to be a great actor and impresario - a dream which may very well have come true, thereby denying the world of Dickens the novelist. As it happened, Dickens acted throughout his life, wrote and produced plays - even managing front of house - and maintained his own amateur acting troupe. Indeed, the stage is where he met the future love of his life, Ellen Ternan, curiously presaged in Nickleby and the 3 of Water card in the Crummles' daughter: The Infant Phenomenon. Ellen had been a child actress, actually being billed as an "infant phenomenon".
For all his love of everything theatrical, Dickens was not a skilled playwright. If he had been able to fulfill his dream, he would've been denied his true calling as a writer of some of the world's best known fictional characters, not to mention his role as social critic - the impact of which was immeasurable on the lives and mindset of every stratum of Victorian society. As much as Dickens felt the kinship and loved the fellowship of the theatre's motley group of misfits, his inner desire for prestige, popularity, and a home life led him outwardly away from this dream. While Dickens kept his dream alive when not writing and larded his novels with a theatricality quite to the public's delight, these outward gains eventually became for him a jail. He became stereo-typed in a role of his own making, and was only able to break free from it by improvising and acting out a false persona for his audience.
On a personal level, the inner force that holds me back from following certain dreams may be a need or predilection for structure - beth. The entertaining allure of the exaggerated and offbeat characters who people the Crummles Strolling Players may reflect a youthful fascination, but it's one which doesn't sustain. Certainly, and simply, a major impediment to the realization of my otherwise dogged enterprising is a mortifying case of stage fright. Where Dickens was a natural performer, I am the personification of performance anxiety and shun few things more than the spotlight.
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.
the 3rd 5 of 4 - unusual. Generally speaking, 5s indicate conflict, Hard Times indeed. Here, the school superintendent and later MP Thomas Gradgrind seems to signify order, stability, and concord. And he does - taken to an absurd extreme. His exaggerated Utilitarianism is not only totally impractical, but it deforms the brains and degrades the souls of his students; notably, his own children Thomas and Louisa.
Because of his adamant allegiance to pragmatism and profit at the expense of the imagination and pleasure, Gradgrind gradually grinds down the psyches of all who fall into his orbit. As a result, his son Tom becomes a gambler and thief, while his daughter Louisa is imprisoned in a loveless marriage, contemplates adultery, and - in a state of utter desolation - induces her father finally to see the error of his ways. Gradgrind, then, is that unique thing in a Dickens novel and in real life - someone whose character undergoes a fundamental change. With his attitude and behaviour enlightened, he becomes a much better man and father, for which he naturally suffers the ridicule and ostracization of his peers - the distinguished Victorian gentlemen of the House of Parliament.
With today's solicitation to seek purification and renewal, I hope - unlike Gradgrind's family - those around me aren't driven to enmity and despair before I recognize the error of my ways. That said, I have grown more uptight, authoritative, and impatient as I've aged, all at the expense of happiness - my own and those around me. Blockheaded adherence to fact is radically unsatisfactory. Rather, the acceptance and embrace of everything human allows for the communion between people essential for emotional health and spiritual growth. In turn, this engagement opens one up to the animal and plant kingdoms and the greater world as a whole. Instead of improving their lot, the demands and criticisms I make of others only alienate them which, in turn, alienates me. Dwelling in the heart rather than the head may help me to remain generous of spirit and remember it is I who needs help and instruction, not them.
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.
David Copperfield's Peggotty is the most open-hearted, nurturing character in The Charles Dickens Tarot; she is the mother of all the Mother cards in the deck. A model of unconditional love, she also supplies and so represents the solid emotional grounding which allows a child to grow with confidence into adulthood. Her stabilizing effect facilitated David's dreams of becoming a famous writer. Having no dark side herself to speak of, the shadow aspect of this card is represented by David's actual mother, who accordingly shares Peggotty's Christian Name: Clara. Mrs. Copperfield loved her son, but unlike Peggotty, her temperament and social position were fragile. In male-dominated Victorian England, David's widowed mother believed her marriage to Mr. Murdstone would be the best thing for her and her son. Instead, not only was it the death of her, but it forced David down the hard road to becoming a man. Like Christ, David Copperfield's paternity was uncertain. With today the ultimate day of the Virgin Mary's parturition - albeit symbolically - this is both the accumulated moment of everything that came before and the great promise of what is to come. With this in mind, I decided to pull a second card...
Well, this as it turns out is the most complicated card in the CDT deck; to extrapolate on it in full would take until Christmas. Some of the key ideas germane to today's allocation: Like young Copperfield, Pip is an orphan who knows nothing of his heritage. On the card's left - the past - stands a church with a graveyard as the sun sets, while on the right in the future shines a full moon above the sea; Pip in the center is the eternal now, the hinge between what was and what will be. In his lantern, which Pip both protects and warms his mitts on, is the union of opposites - the male sun and the female moon, the inward and the out. He is the son, who becomes a man the hard way - through the complete revaluation of his expectations of what real love and family are. Here he is a boy, but his arms are those of a man. Pip is overwrought with self-pity, and is indeed pitiable. His future is shadowy and unknown, but he must embrace the dark, the secret, and the mutable if he is to outgrow his illusions and inborn sense of disgrace. In the end, fire will engulf his false mother, water will drown the evil which infects his story, and the sea will carry him to the cradle of the cradle of Western Civilization - Pip's flight into Egypt. The name Mary in Hebrew means "bitterness" and cognates with the Latin mare meaning "sea", suggesting the false cognate nightmare. Mariology centers on the maternal - pity, devotion, redemption, and grace. I will try to center myself on these gifts today, and in the coming days spent with family.
6. Festival of Life, Christmas: - Dec 25th
This card shows us how to connect directly with Spirit.
Amy Dorrit - affectionately called "Little Dorrit" - is a bridge. Here, on the Mother of Earth card, she stands half on a bridge and half in the Marshalsea debtor's prison. Born in prison, she grew to a young woman in the Marshalsea, although many still consider her a child due to her small stature and deferential manner. She and her family have been made criminals because of her father's inability to pay a small debt. Allowed to leave the prison by day, Little Dorrit works as a maid to provide for her father and family. Her father, William Dorrit [cf. 4 of Air] is infirm and penniless, yet retains a fragile air of nobility. When he inherits a small fortune, the Dorrit family go from rags to riches overnight, and they all indulge in their newfound status and luxury - all save Little Dorrit, who remains the same sincere, unaffected woman she's always been. When the man she secretly admires is himself imprisoned in the Marshalsea, she sacrifices all her resources to save him.
Little Dorrit is both child and mother, seemingly the weakest person in the novel but in actuality the strongest. In a world built of deceit, illusion, cruelty, and false divisions, she embodies the spirit of humility, generosity, guilelessness, and grace. With today's direction, "how to connect directly with Spirit", the suggested aim is to remain humble and persevering, see things for what they are not what they proclaim to be, give even in poverty, and foster the emancipating riches of the heart rather than the imprisoning world of Maya. A precept apropos Christmas day, its downright mangy origins spoiled by consumerism. "Man is born free, but he is everywhere in chains." The incarceration of incarnation, a reality of life worsened by men's attitudes and actions, the delivery from which the birth of Christ is symbol.
Out of curiosity, I pulled another card just to see what it would be - if it would reinforce the Little Dorrit card, contradict it, or just be nonsense. I pulled Strength
Still curious, I wondered what the opposite of Little Dorrit would be, her shadow as it were. I pulled Mother of Fire - Miss Havisham
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.
The Devil card pulled with the solicitation to express nurturance may seem odd - it would with the RWS deck at any rate, but less so with the CDT. The closest thing to a physical devil character on this card is Fagin, the red-haired miserly kidsman (an adult who recruits children into criminal gangs) of London's Victorian-era underworld. As with the walrus and the carpenter, there's been much debate to determine who was the more evil, Bill Sikes or Fagin - Sikes being a heartless brute but Fagin arguably more inhuman precisely because he possessed a trace of humanity. In the end, of course, both ate as many oysters as they could get. Much has also been made of Fagin's Jewishness, and while the devil we know originated in Jewish legend, Western Civilization has done its darnedest to shape that devil in its own image. Opposite "the Jew" (as the novel repeatedly calls him), less adversary than Fagin's compatriot in adversity, sits Oliver Twist, the orphaned innocent in a world of hardship and cruelty. Oliver is what Fagin and Sikes once were, and they what Oliver is on the path to becoming. Here, it will be remembered, the Devil is Poverty, not a person. Societal disparity leads directly to despair, suffering, and criminality. The greed of the haves creates the so-called evil of the have-nots. Without compassion and generosity of the spirit - the kind afforded within a family - even what little the defenseless, the infirm, the least among us have, that too shall be taken away. Not by God, or Providence, but by us.
The faceless figure in the card's center reveals the two ragged children shown to Scrooge near the end of A Christmas Carol. The boy is Ignorance and the girl is Want. On the boy's brow is written Doom, "unless the writing be erased." Unless we understand that all humanity is a family which needs protection, purpose, and a share in the greater prosperity, we will continue to be conquered by our own divide. Making devils of what we deem other - be it the poor, the young, "the Jew" - engenders dissolution, pain, and the indenture of all. Shining light on the dark dirty secret of the division of peoples is the soul of the true authority, the Golden Rule: loving the other as oneself. When whatever you do to the least of these brothers and sisters, you do to me, the me in this case - as in all cases - is you. And the you is me.
8. Birth of Freyja: - Dec 27th
This card points to issues of love, luck, artistic and creative expression and female wisdom.
This card certainly concerns luck. The novel it revolves around, Barnaby Rudge, was set to be Dickens' first, but due to other obligations, it became the author's fifth instead - luckily, for had Rudge been the young novelist's introduction to the public, he may never have written another book again. While Rudge was mostly ignored, it's biggest influence came through it's central female character, Dolly Varden. Today's dedication to Freyja is apt for Dolly, since both were what could be called party-girls (one of Freyja's names is Mardöll). Dolly Varden had a style of dress named after her, inspired songs and musicals, became a kind of cake, and the namesake of a species of trout. The raven below the X of the mechanical timepiece at the card's core is Grip, Barnaby Rudge's pet and the novel's familiar. The bird was based on Dicken's real-life pet crow, and it so impressed Edgar Allen Poe that he actually got a Grip - purchasing the taxidermied corvid and penning his poem The Raven. Rudge was also the literary inspiration for Dostoyevsky's The Idiot.
The CDT's alt-title for the RWS Wheel of Fortune card is The Weal of Fortune, an allusion to the societal themes of poverty, class, and religion in the novel and its historical basis. Certainly, Dickens' concern for the plight of the underclass suffused his work with artistic strength and merit. May Day celebrations, with its May Day pole dancing and May Day queen seen on the right of the Weal of Fortune card, was a pagan ritual beloved by the people and Queen Elizabeth I, yet she was compelled by her Protestant privy council to outlaw it. Along with the novel's riots and military reaction, these ideas allude to the clamp-down on creative expression endemic to England's history. Dickens himself managed to avenge a private grudge in Rudge by naming the mansion which burns to the ground The Warren - a symbol of Warren's blacking factory where he slaved as a boy.
This Weal of Fortune card suggests chaos, manipulation, and plodding mechanics all at once, where the intended is a misstep and the accidental perfectly fits. With today's allocation, this may suggest Freyja's role as völva, a Norse magician involved in determining the course of Fate. To that end, I will try to stay aware of the seemingly accidental today and in the coming year, to acknowledge where stubborn attempts at human intent are fruitless and where chance and mishap reveal an otherwise hidden path.
9. Feast of Alcyone: - Dec 28th
This card gives us a personal inner message - one that speaks directly to our heart and spirit.
The Son of Water is the Knight of Cups in RWS terminology. David Copperfield - a character almost everyone knows - is a stand-in for Charles Dickens himself, become the hero of his own story. Here, on the CDT card, is the pre-adolescent David, his image captured in a locket encompassed by his mother's hair - a sentimental Victorian mode of keepsake. In the background is a field at night - one of the desolate places young David slept rough on his trek from his indenture at Warren's Blacking factory in London to his Great-Aunt, Betsey Trotwood, in Kent. This was a route Dickens would come to know well in his later years, as he traveled it back and forth from his home at Gad's Hill to the house of his secret mistress, Ellen Ternan.
David, of course, is the focus of the novel, with all things revolving around him; this being the nature of subjectivity, wherein each of us is the hero - or perhaps anti-hero - of our own story. For everyone else, David can be frustrating - as with his ridiculous marriage to Dora Spenlow - and embarrassing - as with his blind adoration of the scoundrel, James Steerforth - and even something of a bore when compared to the colourful characters who orbit him - Wilkins Micawber, Mr. Dick, Rosa Dartle, the Peggottys, Uriah Heep. Really, it is the people who comprise the extended family around the orphaned David who make his story so memorable and beloved, even as without him, the author, we wouldn't have the story.
Water is the suit I feel innately akin with. I am a Pisces, my partner is Scorpio, my mother is Cancer, and many of the friends in my life have been water signs. Being an only child, and living in close proximity to my parents, facilitates for me an easy affinity with the role of son. Perhaps it is a role I am in danger of sentimentalizing? one I need to grow out of or run away from like David did the blacking factory? or perhaps I need to recognize the extended family surrounding me who allow me to be the hero of my own story, their influence good or bad, and give them the appreciation due.
To get a clearer understanding of today's allocation of a personal inner message, I decided to pull 2 cards: one for the heart, and one for the spirit. The first card I pulled was The Ace of Water
The emotional significance of this card vis-a-vis the heart seems self-evident. In the CDT, Water on the Ace is symbolized by the Thames River, its Brittonic Celtic name meaning dark and in Victorian times frequently referred to as Isis - mother goddess of creation, magic, wisdom, death, & resurrection. Water itself symbolizes love, feeling, fertility, bounty, fidelity, the subconscious, and the benevolent creative wellspring.
The second card I pulled for spirit was 9 of Fire - Abel Magwitch
Magwitch is the convict from Great Expectations whom another orphan - Pip - aids in the marshes of the Medway in Kent. Unbeknownst to Pip, Magwitch becomes his benefactor as Pip meantime goes astray under the influence of Miss Havisham, Estella, and the snares of affluence and prestige. Like a soul, Magwitch is caged, but like a Guardian Angel Magwitch is able to convey to the wayward Pip the false-front of the world, help him see beneath its facade to the realities underlying it, thereby enabling him to value only those things of true worth.
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.
With today's upbeat theme, I half wondered if I wasn't about to pull the 10 of Air - Bill Sikes card. Instead of that ironic card, I pulled the apposite Lovers. My lover happens to be staying with me over the holidays, and we are set to make a small getaway in a couple of days as a break from all the familial Christmas duties. The Lovers card depicts the young Charles Dickens and his new bride Catharine Hogarth dressed as the lead characters from Romeo & Juliet. These portraits were made by the couple's friend Daniel Maclise, with the one of Charles being used as frontispiece for Nicholas Nickleby.
On the left, Friar Laurence is played by Vincent Crummles (coincidently, Lawrence is my lover's last name). As seen on the 3 of Water card [Dec. 22 above], Nicholas Nickleby joined the Crummles Strolling Players and made a splash playing Romeo. Like Nickleby, Dickens loved the theatre, putting on amateur productions at home using members of his family, including his wife Catharine. Here, Juliet's mother, Lady Capulet, is played by Catharine's mother, Georgina Hogarth.
With today's playful allocation, The Lovers card suggests a few things, all of which are fairly straightforward. Foremost, of course, is the indulgence in matters amorous. There is also the idea that all the world's a stage - we are playing parts in a play, so may as well have as much fun with it as we can. The dark side of this is we are people underneath the roles we are assigned, and must keep distinct the person and the persona. Eventually, dissatisfied with his home life, Dickens threw himself into his work in a prolonged act of avoidance. Along with passion, The Lovers is a card of choice and responsibility. Just as all work and no play is dull, so is all play and no work - a balance must be struck, then, between fidelity and playing house and a person's individual identity. The way Dickens involved his wife and family in his love of theatre - literally building a theatre in their home - is symbol of this union between affection and affectation, performance and being oneself, and the often conflicting obligations had between the ego and the affianced other.
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.
Joes Gargery is a simple blacksmith - he hammers together unwieldy things. He is one of the biggest-hearted characters in all of Dickens, and one of the humblest. He is Pip's uncle in Great Expectations, but his role is more of a father figure - in fact, it's also that of a mother figure, his love for the boy being unconditional. When his wife is paralyzed, Joe patiently nurses her. When Pip, grown snobbish with wealth and privilege and embarrassed of his humble beginnings, is rude to Joe, Joe discreetly exits Pip's life. Not a rich man, he nevertheless quietly pays all of Pips debts before leaving. In the end, Joe marries the honest and good-natured Biddy, the country school teacher Pip himself should've courted rather than the cold-hearted Estella.
With today's card showing us how to deal with stress philosophically, the Father of Water is a character who is often out of his depths, just barely treading water in the deep end. Joe is a big strong man, but he never uses it to leverage advantage. Instead, he is highly compassionate and first and foremost, forgiving. When the convicts escape at the beginning of the novel, and everyone else is concerned for their own safety, Joe is occupied with the welfare of the prisoners. His kindness and generosity are a model of grace. Unlike the book's protagonist Pip, Joe's integrity is rewarded at the end of Great Expectations with a loving wife and family. Joe's great skill is humility, buoyed with honesty and compassion. His shadow side is sorrow, the sadness which is real life rather than the vainglory and empty allure of our ego's expectations.
Curious as to what this card's opposite would be - and, frankly, if the cards which have been so fitting so far would continue to be - I pulled the 9 of Air - Lady Dedlock.
Lady Dedlock is a character who has been kept from loving and so from living. She abandoned the child she had out of wedlock (the 1 remaining Water court card not yet drawn, Daughter of Water - Esther Summerson) and, living by society's rules rather than the rules of her own heart, she married a man of wealth and prestige old enough to be her father. Her outside world is gilt, her inner world is guilt. Hating herself, she has tried to be in everything resigned, but rather than apathetic, she seethes with resentment and shame. Her name - Honoria Dedlock - says it all. She is without question a cautionary tale; an excellent example of how not to walk one's path in a confident and 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.
For 13 years, Ellen Ternan maintained a secret love affair with Charles Dickens. When he died suddenly, she disappeared into obscurity. When she emerged years later, she was 13 years younger - or at least claimed to be. Certainly her new husband, clergyman George Robinson, believed she was 24 rather than 37. When he eventually discovered the truth of her past with Dickens, he suffered a nervous breakdown from which he never recovered.
At first, Nelly's relationship with Dickens was platonic. When she finally succumbed to his advances, she felt shame. The covertness of the affair made her a kept woman. For a time she lived in France where she bore Dickens a boy; the child did not live long. Returning to England along with her mother and Dickens, Nelly was aboard a train that crashed in what became known as the Staplehurst disaster (cf. The Tower card). These traumas underscored her own sense of crime and punishment, even though it was in essence society's prejudices which kept her relationship with Dickens illicit and society's verdict on that relationship as sin which haunted her.
With today's year-end solicitation, to let go the old and welcome the new, Nelly Ternan is a model of nimbleness and renewal, both on the mundane plain and the intangible. Outliving Dickens by many years, she never jeopardized his reputation by revealing publicly her critical role in his life. Faced with an uncertain future, she completely reinvented herself to Victorian era standards. She maintained close bonds with her own mother and sisters, as well as a lifelong friendship with Dickens' sister-in-law, Georgina Hogarth, and his daughter, Kate Perugini. Within herself, she knew the truth and value of the love she shared with the great author, and kept its secret as a hidden source of solace. Outwardly, she steeled herself, her mettle an alloy; along with solace came indignity - the former she used as balm, the latter as incentive.
Much of the Charles Dickens Tarot turns on this card, Ellen Ternan being - although unseen - a major and pervasive influence in Dickens' later life. In 2019, when I turn 50, my partner of 11 years [a Scorpio] is coming to live with me [a Pisces], which will also affect the family dynamic here, where my parents also reside [my mother being a Cancer]. Associated with emotions and spirit essentially, the zodiacal water signs generally, and issues concerning the female side of ourselves, The High Priestess - always an important card for me - stands as both a well-spring and incentive for the coming year - a year which promises much change.
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Re: Sacred Days of Yule 2018 - December 20 - 31
Joan Marie wrote: ↑02 Dec 2018, 11:59 I'm so ready for for this! Really looking forward to it. I have an idea of the deck I want to use but we'll see in the meantime if anything else pops up!
Right now I am leaning toward my current deck crush which is The Spolia Tarot. It comes with extra cards for the astrology signs and the 4 elements so I may try and work out a way to use those for this Sacred days of Yule reading.
Oh yes, you might make a real pre-view of the coming year!
Wonderful decks - Charles Dickens! Spolia! I'm looking forward to this, too.
-
CharlotteK
- Sage
- Posts: 491
- Joined: 19 May 2018, 15:31
CharlotteK's Sacred Days of Yule 2018 - December 20 - 31
Deck: Anna K Tarot
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.
Eight of Wands
Wow. This is a card of messages and news, plain and simple. I had a very vivid and memorable dream last night. I shall certainly be paying attention to any dreams tonight!
ETA: my dreams last night (20th) were not memorable so I'm taking the night before's very vivid dreams to be the message. Which was ... Don't let other people encroach on or hijack your values, aims, space, energy and possessions. If you let them they will. You need to stand up for yourself and say "no". Protect what is of value you to you, spiritually, emotionally and materially. Don't let others with a different agenda debase those previous things.
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.
Three of Swords
A card I never like to see. Here we see a decision made against the heart being represented. Is it the right decision? Does going against our heart ever work out? Perhaps if what our heart wants will do us harm, then this is the right choice. Perhaps I will have to turn away from something this year in order to find the light and this decision will cause me heartache? This sounds like a very difficult path and really knowing whether the heart is right or wrong doesn't seem an easy task.
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.
Knight of Cups
Can't get more dreamy than the Knight of Cups! This suggests to me I'm more 'in love' with the idea of my dreams than with following them and making them a reality. I know this to be true. I get an idea in my head, I'm completely taken with it, I love the idea of it, I think about it and daydream about it but when it comes to taking action, practicing it, working at it, my enthusiasm seems to dwindle a little. This is my blockage that I need to focus on overcoming this coming year. To take my 'dreams' beyond loving the ideas and take concrete steps to follow them.
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.
Wheel of Fortune
Resilience is what I see here. Dealing with my insecurities, not taking ups and downs to heart, and having a positive and constructive outlook on life. I do have a habit of dwelling on things and this definitely holds me back and stops me moving forward. I'm also guilty of clinging onto hurts and having expectations of others and myself that are not realistic and fair. As part of our grove winter solstice ceremony I offered up my intolerance and frustrations to the fire and the wheel here is a reminder that the ability to cope with the twists and turns of fate is key to 'letting go'.
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.
Five of Cups
Here I sit surrounded by ruins, dwelling on misfortune, loss and what is broken, failing to see the bright sky through the archway. Life in general really doesn't feel anywhere near this bad, and I have a great deal to be thankful for and joyful about! But there are shadows from past experiences, wounds, scars and hurts that I have clung onto, and painful memories that I periodically return to and torture myself with. Seems that where ancestor spirits and guides can help me most is in guiding me towards that archway of light, to leave behind the ruins of past mistakes and disappointments, leave behind the "if only" and "what could have been". The archway of light is a powerful image for meditations that I can use to connect.
6. Festival of Life, Christmas: - Dec 25th
This card shows us how to connect directly with Spirit.
The Lovers
I love this card very much and I think it is perhaps my favourite depiction of the lovers in any deck. The description of this card describes it as the unconditional 'yes' we give when we make a.decision from the heart. It's the complete commitment. And in this context of connecting direct to Spirit, it represents to me taking responsibility for the 'yes' I gave when undertaking druid initiation. Yes to embracing life's joys, sufferings and being completely open to living. Yes to finding, sharing and radiating peace. Yes to standing heart to heart and hand in hand with others. Connecting directly to spirit this year means honouring what I said yes to wholeheartedly, loving and cherishing the path I chose, respecting it and taking it seriously.
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 Swords
8. Birth of Freyja: - Dec 27th
This card points to issues of love, luck, artistic and creative expression and female wisdom.
King of Cups
9. Feast of Alcyone: - Dec 28th
This card gives us a personal inner message - one that speaks directly to our heart and spirit.
Seven of Swords
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.
Temperance
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.
Three of Pentacles
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.
Four of Cups
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.
Eight of Wands
Wow. This is a card of messages and news, plain and simple. I had a very vivid and memorable dream last night. I shall certainly be paying attention to any dreams tonight!
ETA: my dreams last night (20th) were not memorable so I'm taking the night before's very vivid dreams to be the message. Which was ... Don't let other people encroach on or hijack your values, aims, space, energy and possessions. If you let them they will. You need to stand up for yourself and say "no". Protect what is of value you to you, spiritually, emotionally and materially. Don't let others with a different agenda debase those previous things.
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.
Three of Swords
A card I never like to see. Here we see a decision made against the heart being represented. Is it the right decision? Does going against our heart ever work out? Perhaps if what our heart wants will do us harm, then this is the right choice. Perhaps I will have to turn away from something this year in order to find the light and this decision will cause me heartache? This sounds like a very difficult path and really knowing whether the heart is right or wrong doesn't seem an easy task.
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.
Knight of Cups
Can't get more dreamy than the Knight of Cups! This suggests to me I'm more 'in love' with the idea of my dreams than with following them and making them a reality. I know this to be true. I get an idea in my head, I'm completely taken with it, I love the idea of it, I think about it and daydream about it but when it comes to taking action, practicing it, working at it, my enthusiasm seems to dwindle a little. This is my blockage that I need to focus on overcoming this coming year. To take my 'dreams' beyond loving the ideas and take concrete steps to follow them.
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.
Wheel of Fortune
Resilience is what I see here. Dealing with my insecurities, not taking ups and downs to heart, and having a positive and constructive outlook on life. I do have a habit of dwelling on things and this definitely holds me back and stops me moving forward. I'm also guilty of clinging onto hurts and having expectations of others and myself that are not realistic and fair. As part of our grove winter solstice ceremony I offered up my intolerance and frustrations to the fire and the wheel here is a reminder that the ability to cope with the twists and turns of fate is key to 'letting go'.
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.
Five of Cups
Here I sit surrounded by ruins, dwelling on misfortune, loss and what is broken, failing to see the bright sky through the archway. Life in general really doesn't feel anywhere near this bad, and I have a great deal to be thankful for and joyful about! But there are shadows from past experiences, wounds, scars and hurts that I have clung onto, and painful memories that I periodically return to and torture myself with. Seems that where ancestor spirits and guides can help me most is in guiding me towards that archway of light, to leave behind the ruins of past mistakes and disappointments, leave behind the "if only" and "what could have been". The archway of light is a powerful image for meditations that I can use to connect.
6. Festival of Life, Christmas: - Dec 25th
This card shows us how to connect directly with Spirit.
The Lovers
I love this card very much and I think it is perhaps my favourite depiction of the lovers in any deck. The description of this card describes it as the unconditional 'yes' we give when we make a.decision from the heart. It's the complete commitment. And in this context of connecting direct to Spirit, it represents to me taking responsibility for the 'yes' I gave when undertaking druid initiation. Yes to embracing life's joys, sufferings and being completely open to living. Yes to finding, sharing and radiating peace. Yes to standing heart to heart and hand in hand with others. Connecting directly to spirit this year means honouring what I said yes to wholeheartedly, loving and cherishing the path I chose, respecting it and taking it seriously.
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 Swords
8. Birth of Freyja: - Dec 27th
This card points to issues of love, luck, artistic and creative expression and female wisdom.
King of Cups
9. Feast of Alcyone: - Dec 28th
This card gives us a personal inner message - one that speaks directly to our heart and spirit.
Seven of Swords
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.
Temperance
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.
Three of Pentacles
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.
Four of Cups
Re: Sacred Days of Yule 2018 - December 20 - 31
Mabel's reading
Deck: RWS
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.
Temperance, rx
With Temperance upside down, the water has a high chance of spilling away. Gravity is suspended here perhaps. Things might stand a chance of getting out of control. If the upright card indicates moderation and balance, then reversed might indicate imbalance and a lack of control. Excess tends to rein this season and can even be encouraged with food and drink, along with spending money and visiting as many friends and family as you can. We tend to stretch ourselves too thin trying to prepare for holidays. Maybe this is a warning card to keep things in moderation and to know when enough is enough, or at least to acknowledge this time of excess and that it will soon be over.
I also notice the long path in the background to the sun. There is a journey or a destination shown in this card. The reversal can also indicate self-healing and re-alignment and those states are often times brought about by a personal journey of sorts.
I could do with some self-healing and re-alignment as I have an injury I am nursing along now.
I will revisit this card after tonight to see what I can glean from my dreams.
So I did have some dreams last night that I remember and I think they do relate. In one dream I had been shot at in my leg, oddly, not the leg that is currently injured. I had small, bb-gun-like bullets embedded in my leg along with what looked like what shrapnel might look like. It healed over, but then I went to a doctor and had them removed and it was nice to get those things out of my skin-they were just below the surface. I don't remember it being painful in the dream. The second dream was about a long, hilly path. I could see a good portion of the path and its ups and downs and was about to set out on it when I woke up.
I think the first dream had to do with the self-healing aspect of Temperance, rx. Maybe this coming year will be one of healing and self-healing. I hope this does not mean my leg is super injured however! I am hoping this is more of an emotional self-healing and a growth in self-knowledge. I think the second dream relates to the path pictured in the card. I think it is telling me that a destination and journey is ahead of me. It could relate back to the first dream and the call for self-healing and cast that in a journey type of light. It is interesting how these dreams do go along with some of the meanings in the card.
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.
Ten of Cups
I think this card is telling me that the best way to connect to the Light within and without is through my connection with my family. I think it is also a nudge to count my blessings and to see all that is around me-to not lose sight of the big picture. This card can also indicate alignment which is good considering that yesterday's card could have been indicating the need for re-alignment. I think in order to connect with the Light, I need to take stock of what I have and be thankful, making sure to connect to my family.
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 Fool
I drew this card a day early since tomorrow will not be a good day to do tarot and since I have some time right now.
I am hoping by doing it now, it is okay because The Fool here perplexes me. The Fool, rx would make more sense, but I will examine it none the less.
The Fool shows us spontaneity, setting off on a journey, perhaps somewhat ill-prepared. It can signify beginnings, innocence, and a free spirit.
I think this card is telling me that the inner blocks and resistance that I face that holds me back from following my dreams is the fear to start off on them. I hold back, waiting for a better time, waiting for me to learn more, waiting for whatever reason I can think of! For example, I try to write and I will write a good bit, but then I come across a part in my story where I need to research and then I think I cannot write anymore until I know all there is about this topic-going that route will take me forever! I need to just write. It is a diversionary technique. If I get the story written, then I can go back to make sure it is accurate.
On the other hand, this card could also be saying that my naivety (innocence) is what keeps me held back. Maybe I need to develop some street smarts
or "get real" in order to truly see situations as they are. Lately, I have been receiving readings that indicate that I am in touch with my dark side or shadow self, but that maybe I am afraid to show that side of me. Maybe this card, with its indication of the "free spirit," is hoping that I do relax a bit and let people see me as a whole more rather than parts that I think they would like. In all honesty, I am still unclear about what a "dark side" and "shadow self" is, but I assume it means my workings with the tarot.
Maybe the inner block and the resistance is the journey itself too? I have lots of actual journeys coming up, but this could be the current trajectory of my current life journey or a more literal interpretation of physical journeys-they don't allow me the time to concentrate on my dreams.
This card was an interesting draw and although I was dubious at first, I did feel that flash of recognition when I first drew it along with the confusion, and I have enjoyed exploring it as it relates to The Time of Beth and inner blocks and resistances to 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.
Five of Wands
This card can indicate disagreement, competition, and hassles. It shows several figures struggling with large poles. Maybe they are trying to build a structure of sorts and they have just broken out in argument.
This card may be telling me to focus on what needs to be done. Am I pushing my agenda too much or not enough? What do I need to organize or harmonize to reach my goals?
I think this card is acknowledging that I have a lot on my plate right now, but part of that is from my disorganization. I deal with strife, but maybe that strife begets more strife because I have not found a way to harmonize all they ways that I am pulled. I do feel imbalanced.
It also could be showing me my inner divides and conflicts and that in order to seek purification and renewal, I need to some how manage and bring to balance outer conflict as well as inner conflicts. This card shows a scene were there is a lack of tolerance for others, so I think it is highlighting that this is not the way to build tolerance for others, or perhaps it is-sometimes, after a particularly difficult time, we found ourselves closer to those with whom we were fighting. This can be the hard way to come together and bond and can create a breeding ground for resentment if the people involved are not honest with each other or there is inequality in power.
Maybe the card asks me to to take stock of the conflicts, and find a way through the maze of adversity and conflict which will in turn purify and renew me. By working through these conflicts, I can learn to be more patient and tolerant of 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.
Seven of Wands, rx
This card can indicate aggression, defiance, and conviction. It shows a figure, preparing to defend himself. The face looks scared but also like they are getting ready for a fight.
This card is for how I can connect with the spirits of my ancestors for communication to ask for wisdom and guidance. The Seven of Wands, rx, seems like it shows a failure of communication. In fact, there has been such bad communication that the figure is on the cusp of violence for his end purposes-be them for reasons of honor or life and death or selfish ones.
This card may be trying to tell me that I need to work harder to connect to the spirits of my ancestors. Maybe the reversed position in particular is telling me that I need a stronger conviction and to be more aggressive in my approach to this. I have started studying my family line, so maybe this is hinting that I need to work harder and be more pro-active with my research. To get the most answers, I realize that actual travel will be involved and that may have to wait til my life is more stable. However, I can do quite a bit of research on the computer and I can request certain papers.
The reversed of this card can mean exhaustion, overwhelmed, and giving up. I do not think I am at this point yet, but I have felt that in the short-term while researching. Maybe this card in the reverse acknowledges this and also warns me that as I try to learn more about my ancestors, I may reach a point of saturation where I feel exhausted about the lack of answers or the confusion around the answers.
I think this card is telling me that, it will not be easy to reach my research goals.
If this card is talking about a kind of psychic experience where I connect with ancestors, then maybe it is asking me to not be so defiant and be more open to this type of communication. Maybe I need to believe in this type of communication more, have more conviction, for it to reward me with communication where I can ask for wisdom and guidance.
6. Festival of Life, Christmas: - Dec 25th
This card shows us how to connect directly with Spirit.
King of Wands
This card can indicate qualities of creativeness, being inspiring and charismatic as well as bold and also forceful.
I think this card is telling me that in order to connect directly with Spirit, one needs to aim to possess these qualities. It has to be a conscious decision to reach out and then I need to follow through. Maybe also, along with being inspiring, I need to be in a place where I can gain inspiration and recognize it from this connection I desire. I suppose being charismatic plays into being inspiring, but I think this should be a more personal reading of this card and those qualities seems to be outer qualities that influence others.
The charismatic could be talking about me in that I need to bring more energy or belief to the table.
I think this card can relate to Christmas as well in that I see a lot of the qualities of the King of Wands in Jesus.
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.
Page of Cups, rx
The Cups generally deal with the emotional realm and I think this card is encouraging me to not think I know it all when it comes to family and friends. I think that is acknowledges that I put a lot of emotion into my family and friends, but that it may be imbalanced or misplaced in that, I need to relax a bit and take a breath now and then.
Could it also be hinting that I am messing something up and cause a spill of emotions or that I need to further explore my feelings and that I take care of myself too. I should not let my cup run empty.
8. Birth of Freyja: - Dec 27th
This card points to issues of love, luck, artistic and creative expression and female wisdom.
Knight of Cups, rx
Another court Cups card reversed. I think the cards are trying to tell me that I need to attend to my emotions. I think this is an interesting card to draw for this. Typically it is about romantic love and desire or emotional involvement. In relation to female wisdom, I see this card as a hunter, tracking down what she loves. I have been burning the candle at both ends and taken up forgotten artistic pursuits recently and this may be hinting at my frustrations at never having enough time plus the patience and time it takes to create.
9. Feast of Alcyone: - Dec 28th
This card gives us a personal inner message - one that speaks directly to our heart and spirit.
The Tower
Uh oh. Okay. I really concentrated hard on this card and acknowledged my feelings of guilt over not getting this reading down in time. I also thought about how when I am running, I don't stop, even if you are having a bad running day, you keep on, because what is the alternative...and the cards delivered. I have not been reading the cards for long, but this is the first time I can remember drawing The Tower.
The Tower usually means something big is coming whether you like it or now. That is no good for me-I hate the unknown and I hate change. There is no going back from a Tower event so at least you can think it is out of your hands. I know of changes I should seek, but I avoid them. This could have to do with a positive change too, I suppose, like the purchase of a house. I will have to wait and see, I guess. It definitely is a message.
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.
Ten of Wands, rx
I think this card is telling me that I all the work and errands that I have day in and day out are bogging down my playful side. I need to put down some work to cultivate this aspect within myself. It is okay to have fun now and then. Some errands can be put off.
I have also been tidying like mad and I think it is telling me that I do not need to be so strict or hard on myself. The house is never going to be perfect, nor should it be.
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.
Death, rx
I just marveled at idea behind the Day of Rest. I would love to be able to walk in a relaxed and confident way. They say to fake it til you make it, which I do 99% percent of the time. I drew Death, rx for this day. The Death card comes up for me a lot it seems.
I think this card is telling me to let go and accept that things just happen sometimes. I do not need to think that how I smiled or waved my hand made any kind of impression, good or bad, or someone. I need to relax. I think it is a nod at resting and realizing that some things are beyond our control. It being reversed could be saying that I am beginning to realize that I shouldn't worry so much about little things.
I could try also to eliminate some things that are causing me stress.
For example, I was stressed out about not finishing this reading on time and debated over whether, I should, but I thought, well maybe it will look bad that I was so late, but I want to finish it and it may not be as wordy as usual or as clear, but for me and my peace of mind, I want to finish it.
On the other hand, maybe this card is saying that it is okay to let go, it would have been equally okay to not finish the reading. There are many directions and layers here to think about.
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.
Death and Tower
Well. I don't know what to say. What a climatic ending! As I split the deck a few fell out after I had split it. I usually pay attention when something like this happens. I turned over the first card of the pile that fell out and that was Death again. Then I turned over the original first card and that was The Tower again.
It does worry me, but what can I do? As a put them on the floor to look at them it looks as if the skeleton knight of the Death card is riding to The Tower. Is Death going to cause more havoc to The Tower situation?The skeleton seems to be looking at me as if saying, you know this is going to happen, don't you, and that time marches on and certain things are inevitable...
As far as reading these cards for this day, these cards are showing me how to release the old and let in the new-both in my external life and inner being. I think Death again is telling me that an end or a transition is on its way and The Tower just confirms that-release, sudden change, downfall and revelation can all come with The Tower. So it could be a mental notion- a realization-and not an actual event. The thing is, is that with The Tower card, I always felt that it was something external that you had no control over, but in this reading it seems to question that. Death and The Tower are trying to show me how to release the old and let in the new. I need to make some sudden changes and end somethings to get rid of the old (all my worrying) and let in the new (calmness, gratitude).
I enjoyed this reading and it has given me a lot to think about. I will try to learn the messages of the cards and take them to heart.
Deck: RWS
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.
Temperance, rx
With Temperance upside down, the water has a high chance of spilling away. Gravity is suspended here perhaps. Things might stand a chance of getting out of control. If the upright card indicates moderation and balance, then reversed might indicate imbalance and a lack of control. Excess tends to rein this season and can even be encouraged with food and drink, along with spending money and visiting as many friends and family as you can. We tend to stretch ourselves too thin trying to prepare for holidays. Maybe this is a warning card to keep things in moderation and to know when enough is enough, or at least to acknowledge this time of excess and that it will soon be over.
I also notice the long path in the background to the sun. There is a journey or a destination shown in this card. The reversal can also indicate self-healing and re-alignment and those states are often times brought about by a personal journey of sorts.
I could do with some self-healing and re-alignment as I have an injury I am nursing along now.
I will revisit this card after tonight to see what I can glean from my dreams.
So I did have some dreams last night that I remember and I think they do relate. In one dream I had been shot at in my leg, oddly, not the leg that is currently injured. I had small, bb-gun-like bullets embedded in my leg along with what looked like what shrapnel might look like. It healed over, but then I went to a doctor and had them removed and it was nice to get those things out of my skin-they were just below the surface. I don't remember it being painful in the dream. The second dream was about a long, hilly path. I could see a good portion of the path and its ups and downs and was about to set out on it when I woke up.
I think the first dream had to do with the self-healing aspect of Temperance, rx. Maybe this coming year will be one of healing and self-healing. I hope this does not mean my leg is super injured however! I am hoping this is more of an emotional self-healing and a growth in self-knowledge. I think the second dream relates to the path pictured in the card. I think it is telling me that a destination and journey is ahead of me. It could relate back to the first dream and the call for self-healing and cast that in a journey type of light. It is interesting how these dreams do go along with some of the meanings in the card.
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.
Ten of Cups
I think this card is telling me that the best way to connect to the Light within and without is through my connection with my family. I think it is also a nudge to count my blessings and to see all that is around me-to not lose sight of the big picture. This card can also indicate alignment which is good considering that yesterday's card could have been indicating the need for re-alignment. I think in order to connect with the Light, I need to take stock of what I have and be thankful, making sure to connect to my family.
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 Fool
I drew this card a day early since tomorrow will not be a good day to do tarot and since I have some time right now.
I am hoping by doing it now, it is okay because The Fool here perplexes me. The Fool, rx would make more sense, but I will examine it none the less.
The Fool shows us spontaneity, setting off on a journey, perhaps somewhat ill-prepared. It can signify beginnings, innocence, and a free spirit.
I think this card is telling me that the inner blocks and resistance that I face that holds me back from following my dreams is the fear to start off on them. I hold back, waiting for a better time, waiting for me to learn more, waiting for whatever reason I can think of! For example, I try to write and I will write a good bit, but then I come across a part in my story where I need to research and then I think I cannot write anymore until I know all there is about this topic-going that route will take me forever! I need to just write. It is a diversionary technique. If I get the story written, then I can go back to make sure it is accurate.
On the other hand, this card could also be saying that my naivety (innocence) is what keeps me held back. Maybe I need to develop some street smarts
or "get real" in order to truly see situations as they are. Lately, I have been receiving readings that indicate that I am in touch with my dark side or shadow self, but that maybe I am afraid to show that side of me. Maybe this card, with its indication of the "free spirit," is hoping that I do relax a bit and let people see me as a whole more rather than parts that I think they would like. In all honesty, I am still unclear about what a "dark side" and "shadow self" is, but I assume it means my workings with the tarot.
Maybe the inner block and the resistance is the journey itself too? I have lots of actual journeys coming up, but this could be the current trajectory of my current life journey or a more literal interpretation of physical journeys-they don't allow me the time to concentrate on my dreams.
This card was an interesting draw and although I was dubious at first, I did feel that flash of recognition when I first drew it along with the confusion, and I have enjoyed exploring it as it relates to The Time of Beth and inner blocks and resistances to 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.
Five of Wands
This card can indicate disagreement, competition, and hassles. It shows several figures struggling with large poles. Maybe they are trying to build a structure of sorts and they have just broken out in argument.
This card may be telling me to focus on what needs to be done. Am I pushing my agenda too much or not enough? What do I need to organize or harmonize to reach my goals?
I think this card is acknowledging that I have a lot on my plate right now, but part of that is from my disorganization. I deal with strife, but maybe that strife begets more strife because I have not found a way to harmonize all they ways that I am pulled. I do feel imbalanced.
It also could be showing me my inner divides and conflicts and that in order to seek purification and renewal, I need to some how manage and bring to balance outer conflict as well as inner conflicts. This card shows a scene were there is a lack of tolerance for others, so I think it is highlighting that this is not the way to build tolerance for others, or perhaps it is-sometimes, after a particularly difficult time, we found ourselves closer to those with whom we were fighting. This can be the hard way to come together and bond and can create a breeding ground for resentment if the people involved are not honest with each other or there is inequality in power.
Maybe the card asks me to to take stock of the conflicts, and find a way through the maze of adversity and conflict which will in turn purify and renew me. By working through these conflicts, I can learn to be more patient and tolerant of 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.
Seven of Wands, rx
This card can indicate aggression, defiance, and conviction. It shows a figure, preparing to defend himself. The face looks scared but also like they are getting ready for a fight.
This card is for how I can connect with the spirits of my ancestors for communication to ask for wisdom and guidance. The Seven of Wands, rx, seems like it shows a failure of communication. In fact, there has been such bad communication that the figure is on the cusp of violence for his end purposes-be them for reasons of honor or life and death or selfish ones.
This card may be trying to tell me that I need to work harder to connect to the spirits of my ancestors. Maybe the reversed position in particular is telling me that I need a stronger conviction and to be more aggressive in my approach to this. I have started studying my family line, so maybe this is hinting that I need to work harder and be more pro-active with my research. To get the most answers, I realize that actual travel will be involved and that may have to wait til my life is more stable. However, I can do quite a bit of research on the computer and I can request certain papers.
The reversed of this card can mean exhaustion, overwhelmed, and giving up. I do not think I am at this point yet, but I have felt that in the short-term while researching. Maybe this card in the reverse acknowledges this and also warns me that as I try to learn more about my ancestors, I may reach a point of saturation where I feel exhausted about the lack of answers or the confusion around the answers.
I think this card is telling me that, it will not be easy to reach my research goals.
If this card is talking about a kind of psychic experience where I connect with ancestors, then maybe it is asking me to not be so defiant and be more open to this type of communication. Maybe I need to believe in this type of communication more, have more conviction, for it to reward me with communication where I can ask for wisdom and guidance.
6. Festival of Life, Christmas: - Dec 25th
This card shows us how to connect directly with Spirit.
King of Wands
This card can indicate qualities of creativeness, being inspiring and charismatic as well as bold and also forceful.
I think this card is telling me that in order to connect directly with Spirit, one needs to aim to possess these qualities. It has to be a conscious decision to reach out and then I need to follow through. Maybe also, along with being inspiring, I need to be in a place where I can gain inspiration and recognize it from this connection I desire. I suppose being charismatic plays into being inspiring, but I think this should be a more personal reading of this card and those qualities seems to be outer qualities that influence others.
The charismatic could be talking about me in that I need to bring more energy or belief to the table.
I think this card can relate to Christmas as well in that I see a lot of the qualities of the King of Wands in Jesus.
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.
Page of Cups, rx
The Cups generally deal with the emotional realm and I think this card is encouraging me to not think I know it all when it comes to family and friends. I think that is acknowledges that I put a lot of emotion into my family and friends, but that it may be imbalanced or misplaced in that, I need to relax a bit and take a breath now and then.
Could it also be hinting that I am messing something up and cause a spill of emotions or that I need to further explore my feelings and that I take care of myself too. I should not let my cup run empty.
8. Birth of Freyja: - Dec 27th
This card points to issues of love, luck, artistic and creative expression and female wisdom.
Knight of Cups, rx
Another court Cups card reversed. I think the cards are trying to tell me that I need to attend to my emotions. I think this is an interesting card to draw for this. Typically it is about romantic love and desire or emotional involvement. In relation to female wisdom, I see this card as a hunter, tracking down what she loves. I have been burning the candle at both ends and taken up forgotten artistic pursuits recently and this may be hinting at my frustrations at never having enough time plus the patience and time it takes to create.
9. Feast of Alcyone: - Dec 28th
This card gives us a personal inner message - one that speaks directly to our heart and spirit.
The Tower
Uh oh. Okay. I really concentrated hard on this card and acknowledged my feelings of guilt over not getting this reading down in time. I also thought about how when I am running, I don't stop, even if you are having a bad running day, you keep on, because what is the alternative...and the cards delivered. I have not been reading the cards for long, but this is the first time I can remember drawing The Tower.
The Tower usually means something big is coming whether you like it or now. That is no good for me-I hate the unknown and I hate change. There is no going back from a Tower event so at least you can think it is out of your hands. I know of changes I should seek, but I avoid them. This could have to do with a positive change too, I suppose, like the purchase of a house. I will have to wait and see, I guess. It definitely is a message.
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.
Ten of Wands, rx
I think this card is telling me that I all the work and errands that I have day in and day out are bogging down my playful side. I need to put down some work to cultivate this aspect within myself. It is okay to have fun now and then. Some errands can be put off.
I have also been tidying like mad and I think it is telling me that I do not need to be so strict or hard on myself. The house is never going to be perfect, nor should it be.
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.
Death, rx
I just marveled at idea behind the Day of Rest. I would love to be able to walk in a relaxed and confident way. They say to fake it til you make it, which I do 99% percent of the time. I drew Death, rx for this day. The Death card comes up for me a lot it seems.
I think this card is telling me to let go and accept that things just happen sometimes. I do not need to think that how I smiled or waved my hand made any kind of impression, good or bad, or someone. I need to relax. I think it is a nod at resting and realizing that some things are beyond our control. It being reversed could be saying that I am beginning to realize that I shouldn't worry so much about little things.
I could try also to eliminate some things that are causing me stress.
For example, I was stressed out about not finishing this reading on time and debated over whether, I should, but I thought, well maybe it will look bad that I was so late, but I want to finish it and it may not be as wordy as usual or as clear, but for me and my peace of mind, I want to finish it.
On the other hand, maybe this card is saying that it is okay to let go, it would have been equally okay to not finish the reading. There are many directions and layers here to think about.
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.
Death and Tower
Well. I don't know what to say. What a climatic ending! As I split the deck a few fell out after I had split it. I usually pay attention when something like this happens. I turned over the first card of the pile that fell out and that was Death again. Then I turned over the original first card and that was The Tower again.
It does worry me, but what can I do? As a put them on the floor to look at them it looks as if the skeleton knight of the Death card is riding to The Tower. Is Death going to cause more havoc to The Tower situation?The skeleton seems to be looking at me as if saying, you know this is going to happen, don't you, and that time marches on and certain things are inevitable...
As far as reading these cards for this day, these cards are showing me how to release the old and let in the new-both in my external life and inner being. I think Death again is telling me that an end or a transition is on its way and The Tower just confirms that-release, sudden change, downfall and revelation can all come with The Tower. So it could be a mental notion- a realization-and not an actual event. The thing is, is that with The Tower card, I always felt that it was something external that you had no control over, but in this reading it seems to question that. Death and The Tower are trying to show me how to release the old and let in the new. I need to make some sudden changes and end somethings to get rid of the old (all my worrying) and let in the new (calmness, gratitude).
I enjoyed this reading and it has given me a lot to think about. I will try to learn the messages of the cards and take them to heart.
Re: Sacred Days of Yule 2018 - December 20 - 31
Dear friends - it's only five more days! I'm excited but haven't decided yet whether to give my new John Bauer or the Pagan Otherworlds a chance to celebrate Yule with me.... hmmm.....
but haven't decided yet whether to give my new John Bauer or the Pagan Otherworlds a chance to celebrate Yule with me.... hmmm.....-
Joan Marie
- Forum Designer
- Sage
- Posts: 5306
- Joined: 22 Apr 2018, 21:52
Re: Sacred Days of Yule 2018 - December 20 - 31
Just 4 days away now.
I was thinking this morning that much is made of starting the new year, but not enough about finding a proper ending to the one we are in.
The Sacred Days of Yule is a very meaningful and contemplative way of putting a finishing touch to 2018 to prepare yourself for 2019.
I'm really looking forward to it and I hope a lot of people join in.
If you have any questions about how to participate or anything else, just click "reply" and ask them here!
I was thinking this morning that much is made of starting the new year, but not enough about finding a proper ending to the one we are in.
The Sacred Days of Yule is a very meaningful and contemplative way of putting a finishing touch to 2018 to prepare yourself for 2019.
I'm really looking forward to it and I hope a lot of people join in.
If you have any questions about how to participate or anything else, just click "reply" and ask them here!
Button Soup Tarot, Star & Crown Oracle available @: Rabbit's Moon Tarot
Re: Sacred Days of Yule 2018 - December 20 - 31
I would like to thank whoever sent out the little reminder emails about this! I used to really enjoy doing these on AT and since its gone I just havent had the gusto to do it myself.
So I have now joined this little forum to do this!!
So heres my set up thread
Sezo's Sacred Days of Yule
Deck used - Spirit Keepers Tarot
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.
Archangel of Mysteries (king of pentacles).
I could not believe it as the card says on the bottom ' Angel who illuminates the Shadow'. How utterly apt for the Winter Solstice night! So so powerful.
Further more, I actually had a very strange dream (which is unusual for me). I was part of a ceremony where I was one of 5 people that had to channel the Spirits to bring wisdom and insight for our witch community. I remember vaguely in the dream thinking 'I am not going to be able to do this, can I fake it till I make it?' and then, I connected with a Being and it spoke very clearly through me.
~ Be still in the silence, and you will sit in the power of the Darkness. It is only there that you will find the True Light. All other Lights that do not originate from Darkness are not True Light but illusions, there to trap and ensnare you along the way. Sit in the Darkness and feel the draw of the Good and the Bad within you - the part of you that wants to hurt and destroy and laugh as you do then, and then beyond that, there is a True Light that can be found by going beyond.
Be mad, be evil, be individual and individuate - and then you are closer to God than ever before, because you are beyond the tricky illusions of the night and are deep into the Darkness that holds the True Light of God'. ~
In the dream, I had a hard time grounding and I had to be almost be thrown back into the ground to shake off the Spirit. Part of me really really likes playing with this energy and I had little visions of all sorts of nefarious and fun ways to play with Shadow and Light in this way.
This is the first time I have used this deck for a reading, I am quite overawed today that I had such a response.
The LWB mentions how the Archangel card can be powerful guide in underworld journeying, in working with the Shadow self and to walk the Path of Revelations. With the Gorgon here I feel that strong Lilith energy which has been repeating itself around me for a while.
For 2018 my little keyword for the year was 'Not Nice'... maybe this year 2019 I should have 'Be Evil' hahahaha
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.
5 of Scepters - The Contender, Saturn in Leo.
When I first pulled this card I felt amazed at the swirling pentagons, really drew me into the back of the card rather than the foreground imagery.
The 4 warriors and the new 'upstart' is here, the 5th Scepter, ready to cause friction and test the metal of those around. There is a strong element of testing, and discerning in this card. Strife,that brings forth Victory (the next card) , we are here to Experience and Learn, often the hard way.
I feel the 5th nature of this card is the power of Spirit that is reminding me keep that at the forefront of my journey - like the Lamp of the Hermit, keep your focus on the Flame of Spirit. But there is an element here of fighting - the True Light always defeats the darkness, changes and whatever happens is meant to be whether we term that 'winning' or 'losing' the challenge itself is the important lesson.
So how best to connect to the Light within and without? Focus on it, Draw on it, keep it as your Guiding Light especially in times of great fight, hardship and challenging times. Whether it is a real moment of fighting for yourself, or even if its just juggling the every day and not sure what needs to go or get binned - let Spirit be the guide.
At the moment I am thinking of what goals or focuses to have for next year and one of them is to get back into Taroting every day again, and I want to do dog training, reiki, meditations, language learning, creative stuff, my marriage..... this card makes me ask the question of what do I think I should be doing, and where do I feel I am being Guided by the Light to do/go/explore. All these things battle for my attention and Tarot has often been the one that has been kicked to the back in recent years - now it may be the right time for it to be the Contender and be the thing in the front to guide me on the Path.
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 Seeker (The Fool) Spirit in Search of Scient
This deck is a little different in that it has 3 Fool cards - which I sort of forgot about at the beginning of this exercise, so I will keep the others in the deck now as I started with them in.
The Seeker is the Fool that is called for when doing divination readings with the deck, and for advice mid course along the path. So maybe the inner block this card is reflecting is self-doubt, needing reassurance and 'checking' that something is right.
Anxiety and compulsive type patterns for reassurance is something I have battled with before and I was off work from it for a while. With medication it has got a lot better, but I hadn't really considered that it the reassurance seeking side of things had impacted on me spiritually.
Doubt and anxiety vs self-confidence and holding your own.... I can see how that creates an impact spiritually for me right now.
There is an element of 'sacrifice' to this card, for the Rose is given in Offering, maybe my anxiety and fear needs to be 'sacrificed' to open the other 2 roses awaiting on the stem.
You have come so far - but to go further you have to give up and give it over, control, excuses, the fear.
The Seeker, aka the Fool would say to just dive in, start it, get on with it, and let Nature do its thing. Trust in the Light.
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.
Archangel Commander (King of Swords)
The time of keeping silent is over, the best way to seek purification and renewal is to fight and stand your ground. Communication.
The Archangel is not silent - he does not fight to have a quiet life, he does not hide in the shadows. This Archangel is ready to stand up, fight for his beliefs and be unapologetic if that is not to everyone's pleasure.
He fights for justice and fairness - and the best purification is to have it out and maybe not be friends anymore.
And the LWB states that he is the Leader of an Army who are ready to help me - I feel like I may need him haha.
I am very venusy - I often seek the easy and more agreeable path, people pleasing and keeping things smooth and easy. So often I may not agree with what people do/say but will just let it slide.
However I have come to realise that that does not make my spirit feel easy - or worse others believe my silence condones their actions/opinions.
Earlier this year I did a cord cutting ceremony to release attachments of some people who were very toxic in my life and WOW it was so powerful an experience. The Archangel here is offering me the Sword to do it some more
And the back up that I can deal with the 'repercussions' of it all.
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.
The Golden Shield - Queen of Sceptres
A thought came into my head as I was shuffling for this draw - the ancestors can be the ancient dead, the recently passed (who we have known and loved) and also the dead aspects of ourselves, the old personas that we have been, the child, the teenager etc. Sometimes we can do with a really good chat from our previous selves to help us get perspective on life.
The queens in this deck are the Powers of the elements and each has a shield of their power, here we have 'Power and Authority of Fire'. The large cross on the shield reminds me how my family have been strongly connected to Spirit and Christianity - and so tonight I shall honour them and their beliefs too, and in our love and devotion to Spirit we are burning with Spirit too. Faith and love can burn brightly to overcome fear, boundaries and the limitations of mortal life.
I shall burn a candle of them tonight - an advent light in the darkness.
The LWB mentions how the Queen of Sceptres shows you are being protected from evil spirits or those wanting to wish me harm - the Shield here protects and so my Ancestors are here with me as protective shield.
6. Festival of Life, Christmas: - Dec 25th
This card shows us how to connect directly with Spirit.
The Demon aka the Devil
This card I think echoes what has been coming through already - Connect to Spirit through the Darkness, for there is where the purest Light is held.
The darkness, of not only exploring the hidden nature of desire and Shadow - but also coming to realise the bonds that I have become wrapped up in that restrict me.
For me, the ties that trap me are my own internal worries - what will xyz think, how can I make xyz better, I cant possibly do this because xyz, what if I do it wrong.... My anxiety is a lot better in that I don't get scared to go outside, but I am scared of showing myself alot. So my Demon is my Anxiety - the what if, the what will they think, the 'I cant do it when they are around', I dont want to upset them.... This often exhibits whilst I am at home at times too.
And yet how can I be trying to contact my Higher Self if I am too scared to bee my Lower Self. There has be some backbone, some, oomph. The Demon has a magic square over the solar/sacral chakras which for me is very relevant too.
For me, being myself is like being the Devil - doing the most naughty thing by doing what I Will and not worrying and thinking about others and how it will effect them. What I need is to be a bit more devilish, to get that oomph of self assurance, which at the moment feels practically 'demonic'.
Is it possible that to face the Demon I have to be be a Demon first?
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 Scepters aka Wands
The idea of family for me has changed a lot over the last few years. My blood family was 'my family' but now my family is really my Wife and our dogs, as well as my Chosen Family of my religion and tradition. Drawing this card made me think about where my real boundaries are now with the word family and the connotations it brings up for me.
Here this card is telling me how much I AM A WINNER! I have a very loving and supportive family of my Wife and friends. This has been a tricky road and has involved sacrifices and heart-ache to be able to have the family that I have now (the sixth wand pierces the side of the Champion in the card). Battle and competition has now changed to success and feeling 'accomplished' in this space. Here I am now in a place where I can really be myself.
So this card suggests to me to be rather proud of the family that I have created and nurtured in my life - and actually how fighting for it has been and will be one of my greatest ongoing achievements.
This card really says to me ' you did it' and I put my family before others who are not worthy. There is a lot of flow between this card and the 5 of Scepters and more lessons there for me to fully feel and learn from.
8. Birth of Freyja: - Dec 27th
This card points to issues of love, luck, artistic and creative expression and female wisdom.
The Shining Winds aka the Knight of Swords
The powers of creativity, luck and magick (also of Freyja) and the Knight of Swords here is an odd combo. This year I have been creative in various little ways, stitching, knitting, colouring in, spiritually creating experiences for other people - all sorts of ways, which can be reflected in the airy nature of the Knight.
In all areas in life I am very Airy - and here the Knight could suggest that I am perhaps a little too Airy in areas of love, luck and creativity. I often reach for a book, become distant emotionally or worse in that I am anxious and a little paranoid at times. I am trying to learn to sit with my breath and be more mindful.
Here the Knight is reminding me that I have to learn to control the Storm that is my head - to control the winds rather than be sucked into the swirling tornado. This requires discipline and focus. In fact, when I was running a lot at one point in the year I did feel it was getting better in lots of ways.
Creatively also, my mental over-activity causes me to worry a lot and so be less creative. I become too judgey and overbearing on myself, too critical and worried about what others think.
A lot here for the Knight, the Angel here to show me a better path.
9. Feast of Alcyone: - Dec 28th
This card gives us a personal inner message - one that speaks directly to our heart and spirit.
Six of Orbs (Pentacles) - the Giver
Balance balance balance.
This makes my eyes fill with tears because this is another lesson I am to keep going over in this life.
The balance of myself and others, the balance of giving and receiving, the balance of home and work, of my needs and others needs...
I have been abused by others due to my generous nature and people can see it as being a bit of a doormat and ripe for people to use and manipulate against me. And so for years I shut myself off from others, and trusted people who I thought were my friends, only they were abusing me and hurting me in other ways that I did not really see at the time.
My loving spirit is actually something that certain people see as ideal to mistreat and misuse for their own advantage.
Balance and how to give without costing myself pain and hurt. This year I have been able to draw a line and cut ties from people who have manipulated me and this card reflects how I am much more 'balanced' in my emotional and spiritual energy than I have been in a while.
But its so very hard for me to do.
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.
8 of Swords - The Captor
Oh dear - I think from this card it shows that my inner child and my playful side is rather tied up lol.
I am a very airy and even as a child I was a very 'serious' child, through my own desposition and then I had to be due to parental stuff - so I didnt really play in the way that others did, but immerse myself in books and learning.
So my inner child is rather stuck, but this card offers a way of being set free by the swords too, to spend more time in fun activities and to get that little bit of 'child like wonder' back. I guess I have been rather wrapped up in the ups and downs of the last couple of years that I need to just be free a bit more.
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.
THe Emperor
Be the BOSS of your life. Do not feel the need to answer or explain yourself and your ways to anyone.
Do not worry or feel that you have to consider others and their needs all the time.
Do not give away yourself or your power.
This Emperor is here showing me all the ways of bringing together my own personal power, and to consolidate it into a really solid foundation.
This is the energy I need to be able to not be blown by the winds of others. Whilst I can see how awesome it is that my anxiety doesnt stop me from going out or having panic attacks about work - it has a far more 'under the radar' appearance every day that I hadn't really noticed until doing this spread - and actually it still very much controls and limits the relationships to others and to Spirit.
The Emperor I feel is going to be my new BFF. Being confident and self assured - but not a crazy dictator, but just firm and sure of my needs and my resources and my boundaries.
To show my anxiety who is the real Boss and ruler of my life - ME.
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.
3 of Chalices (Cups) The Kindred
The Sun, The Moon, The Stars - the Divine, my HGA and my Self.
Seeing how things are part of a 'fellowship' of energy and that I am part of this energy - and that I am held and loved and supported by the Universe. There is so much support from the Divine when one stops trying to force, manipulate or battle against it - the Ego and its battle tactics (such as my anxiety) are real evidence of that.
Whilst obviously the 3 of cups talks about friendship etc, I get a strong feeling that whilst this is true, that often we can, I can, forget how the Divine is Love and part of that Soul friendship, working together for Unity and development. There is no battle of wills, no self-serving egotistical stuff, but that the Divine seeks to be in harmony, and manifested harmony on the Earth within us.
I had never really thought of that before - but seeing it in this card, it really feels so incredibly true and so damn obvious!
How to let go of the old and let in the new - trust in the Fellowship of the Divine, you are held and you are loved.
Review
Majors 3 (Seeker Devil Emperor)
Wands 3
Cups 1
Swords 3
Pents 2
There are some strong themes in this reading.
1- to sit with the Darkness within - and the biggest Shadow aspect that this reading has brought to light (which I wasnt really aware of) is how much my anxiety still affects a lot of my life and my spiritual development. There is a lot I need to do, to be mindful of the thought processes that go on in my head as to what, how and why I do the things I do. I feel that with medication I have stopped being crazy anxiety, and I have gone back to my normal 'functioning' anxiety, which actually is a still a problem that needs to be address to progress.
2 - Be strong and stand your ground.
The Devil, Emperor, King of Swords, Queen of Wands, 6 of wands, Knight of Swords, 5 of Wands, 6 of Pents
All these cards a fighting cards, to be self empowered, guarded and feel able to make decisions and be in my own Power. The only way to do that is to sit in the darkness of my true level of anxiety and with awareness and intention to overcome. These cards are very much powerful allies and guardians for me on that way.
Here I can develop the skills of standing my ground, fighting the demons within, but also fighting for myself against the needs and wants of others, fighting against the 'should's and must do' and move into an area of my Will and what I want and need to develop. I can only do that when I stop over-giving of myself to others, to appease my anxiety demons and the needs of others.
3 - The power of the Divine in there.
The King of Pents, and the 3 of Chalices really show me how much Divine Light there is, how much support and guidance I can draw on. That Spirit and I can blend together for healing and putting myself in a better self-aware state and as such, a better vehicle for the HGA and the Divine will on Earth.
So I have now joined this little forum to do this!!
So heres my set up thread
Sezo's Sacred Days of Yule
Deck used - Spirit Keepers Tarot
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.
Archangel of Mysteries (king of pentacles).
I could not believe it as the card says on the bottom ' Angel who illuminates the Shadow'. How utterly apt for the Winter Solstice night! So so powerful.
Further more, I actually had a very strange dream (which is unusual for me). I was part of a ceremony where I was one of 5 people that had to channel the Spirits to bring wisdom and insight for our witch community. I remember vaguely in the dream thinking 'I am not going to be able to do this, can I fake it till I make it?' and then, I connected with a Being and it spoke very clearly through me.
~ Be still in the silence, and you will sit in the power of the Darkness. It is only there that you will find the True Light. All other Lights that do not originate from Darkness are not True Light but illusions, there to trap and ensnare you along the way. Sit in the Darkness and feel the draw of the Good and the Bad within you - the part of you that wants to hurt and destroy and laugh as you do then, and then beyond that, there is a True Light that can be found by going beyond.
Be mad, be evil, be individual and individuate - and then you are closer to God than ever before, because you are beyond the tricky illusions of the night and are deep into the Darkness that holds the True Light of God'. ~
In the dream, I had a hard time grounding and I had to be almost be thrown back into the ground to shake off the Spirit. Part of me really really likes playing with this energy and I had little visions of all sorts of nefarious and fun ways to play with Shadow and Light in this way.
This is the first time I have used this deck for a reading, I am quite overawed today that I had such a response.
The LWB mentions how the Archangel card can be powerful guide in underworld journeying, in working with the Shadow self and to walk the Path of Revelations. With the Gorgon here I feel that strong Lilith energy which has been repeating itself around me for a while.
For 2018 my little keyword for the year was 'Not Nice'... maybe this year 2019 I should have 'Be Evil' hahahaha
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.
5 of Scepters - The Contender, Saturn in Leo.
When I first pulled this card I felt amazed at the swirling pentagons, really drew me into the back of the card rather than the foreground imagery.
The 4 warriors and the new 'upstart' is here, the 5th Scepter, ready to cause friction and test the metal of those around. There is a strong element of testing, and discerning in this card. Strife,that brings forth Victory (the next card) , we are here to Experience and Learn, often the hard way.
I feel the 5th nature of this card is the power of Spirit that is reminding me keep that at the forefront of my journey - like the Lamp of the Hermit, keep your focus on the Flame of Spirit. But there is an element here of fighting - the True Light always defeats the darkness, changes and whatever happens is meant to be whether we term that 'winning' or 'losing' the challenge itself is the important lesson.
So how best to connect to the Light within and without? Focus on it, Draw on it, keep it as your Guiding Light especially in times of great fight, hardship and challenging times. Whether it is a real moment of fighting for yourself, or even if its just juggling the every day and not sure what needs to go or get binned - let Spirit be the guide.
At the moment I am thinking of what goals or focuses to have for next year and one of them is to get back into Taroting every day again, and I want to do dog training, reiki, meditations, language learning, creative stuff, my marriage..... this card makes me ask the question of what do I think I should be doing, and where do I feel I am being Guided by the Light to do/go/explore. All these things battle for my attention and Tarot has often been the one that has been kicked to the back in recent years - now it may be the right time for it to be the Contender and be the thing in the front to guide me on the Path.
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 Seeker (The Fool) Spirit in Search of Scient
This deck is a little different in that it has 3 Fool cards - which I sort of forgot about at the beginning of this exercise, so I will keep the others in the deck now as I started with them in.
The Seeker is the Fool that is called for when doing divination readings with the deck, and for advice mid course along the path. So maybe the inner block this card is reflecting is self-doubt, needing reassurance and 'checking' that something is right.
Anxiety and compulsive type patterns for reassurance is something I have battled with before and I was off work from it for a while. With medication it has got a lot better, but I hadn't really considered that it the reassurance seeking side of things had impacted on me spiritually.
Doubt and anxiety vs self-confidence and holding your own.... I can see how that creates an impact spiritually for me right now.
There is an element of 'sacrifice' to this card, for the Rose is given in Offering, maybe my anxiety and fear needs to be 'sacrificed' to open the other 2 roses awaiting on the stem.
You have come so far - but to go further you have to give up and give it over, control, excuses, the fear.
The Seeker, aka the Fool would say to just dive in, start it, get on with it, and let Nature do its thing. Trust in the Light.
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.
Archangel Commander (King of Swords)
The time of keeping silent is over, the best way to seek purification and renewal is to fight and stand your ground. Communication.
The Archangel is not silent - he does not fight to have a quiet life, he does not hide in the shadows. This Archangel is ready to stand up, fight for his beliefs and be unapologetic if that is not to everyone's pleasure.
He fights for justice and fairness - and the best purification is to have it out and maybe not be friends anymore.
And the LWB states that he is the Leader of an Army who are ready to help me - I feel like I may need him haha.
I am very venusy - I often seek the easy and more agreeable path, people pleasing and keeping things smooth and easy. So often I may not agree with what people do/say but will just let it slide.
However I have come to realise that that does not make my spirit feel easy - or worse others believe my silence condones their actions/opinions.
Earlier this year I did a cord cutting ceremony to release attachments of some people who were very toxic in my life and WOW it was so powerful an experience. The Archangel here is offering me the Sword to do it some more
And the back up that I can deal with the 'repercussions' of it all. 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.
The Golden Shield - Queen of Sceptres
A thought came into my head as I was shuffling for this draw - the ancestors can be the ancient dead, the recently passed (who we have known and loved) and also the dead aspects of ourselves, the old personas that we have been, the child, the teenager etc. Sometimes we can do with a really good chat from our previous selves to help us get perspective on life.
The queens in this deck are the Powers of the elements and each has a shield of their power, here we have 'Power and Authority of Fire'. The large cross on the shield reminds me how my family have been strongly connected to Spirit and Christianity - and so tonight I shall honour them and their beliefs too, and in our love and devotion to Spirit we are burning with Spirit too. Faith and love can burn brightly to overcome fear, boundaries and the limitations of mortal life.
I shall burn a candle of them tonight - an advent light in the darkness.
The LWB mentions how the Queen of Sceptres shows you are being protected from evil spirits or those wanting to wish me harm - the Shield here protects and so my Ancestors are here with me as protective shield.
6. Festival of Life, Christmas: - Dec 25th
This card shows us how to connect directly with Spirit.
The Demon aka the Devil
This card I think echoes what has been coming through already - Connect to Spirit through the Darkness, for there is where the purest Light is held.
The darkness, of not only exploring the hidden nature of desire and Shadow - but also coming to realise the bonds that I have become wrapped up in that restrict me.
For me, the ties that trap me are my own internal worries - what will xyz think, how can I make xyz better, I cant possibly do this because xyz, what if I do it wrong.... My anxiety is a lot better in that I don't get scared to go outside, but I am scared of showing myself alot. So my Demon is my Anxiety - the what if, the what will they think, the 'I cant do it when they are around', I dont want to upset them.... This often exhibits whilst I am at home at times too.
And yet how can I be trying to contact my Higher Self if I am too scared to bee my Lower Self. There has be some backbone, some, oomph. The Demon has a magic square over the solar/sacral chakras which for me is very relevant too.
For me, being myself is like being the Devil - doing the most naughty thing by doing what I Will and not worrying and thinking about others and how it will effect them. What I need is to be a bit more devilish, to get that oomph of self assurance, which at the moment feels practically 'demonic'.
Is it possible that to face the Demon I have to be be a Demon first?
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 Scepters aka Wands
The idea of family for me has changed a lot over the last few years. My blood family was 'my family' but now my family is really my Wife and our dogs, as well as my Chosen Family of my religion and tradition. Drawing this card made me think about where my real boundaries are now with the word family and the connotations it brings up for me.
Here this card is telling me how much I AM A WINNER! I have a very loving and supportive family of my Wife and friends. This has been a tricky road and has involved sacrifices and heart-ache to be able to have the family that I have now (the sixth wand pierces the side of the Champion in the card). Battle and competition has now changed to success and feeling 'accomplished' in this space. Here I am now in a place where I can really be myself.
So this card suggests to me to be rather proud of the family that I have created and nurtured in my life - and actually how fighting for it has been and will be one of my greatest ongoing achievements.
This card really says to me ' you did it' and I put my family before others who are not worthy. There is a lot of flow between this card and the 5 of Scepters and more lessons there for me to fully feel and learn from.
8. Birth of Freyja: - Dec 27th
This card points to issues of love, luck, artistic and creative expression and female wisdom.
The Shining Winds aka the Knight of Swords
The powers of creativity, luck and magick (also of Freyja) and the Knight of Swords here is an odd combo. This year I have been creative in various little ways, stitching, knitting, colouring in, spiritually creating experiences for other people - all sorts of ways, which can be reflected in the airy nature of the Knight.
In all areas in life I am very Airy - and here the Knight could suggest that I am perhaps a little too Airy in areas of love, luck and creativity. I often reach for a book, become distant emotionally or worse in that I am anxious and a little paranoid at times. I am trying to learn to sit with my breath and be more mindful.
Here the Knight is reminding me that I have to learn to control the Storm that is my head - to control the winds rather than be sucked into the swirling tornado. This requires discipline and focus. In fact, when I was running a lot at one point in the year I did feel it was getting better in lots of ways.
Creatively also, my mental over-activity causes me to worry a lot and so be less creative. I become too judgey and overbearing on myself, too critical and worried about what others think.
A lot here for the Knight, the Angel here to show me a better path.
9. Feast of Alcyone: - Dec 28th
This card gives us a personal inner message - one that speaks directly to our heart and spirit.
Six of Orbs (Pentacles) - the Giver
Balance balance balance.
This makes my eyes fill with tears because this is another lesson I am to keep going over in this life.
The balance of myself and others, the balance of giving and receiving, the balance of home and work, of my needs and others needs...
I have been abused by others due to my generous nature and people can see it as being a bit of a doormat and ripe for people to use and manipulate against me. And so for years I shut myself off from others, and trusted people who I thought were my friends, only they were abusing me and hurting me in other ways that I did not really see at the time.
My loving spirit is actually something that certain people see as ideal to mistreat and misuse for their own advantage.
Balance and how to give without costing myself pain and hurt. This year I have been able to draw a line and cut ties from people who have manipulated me and this card reflects how I am much more 'balanced' in my emotional and spiritual energy than I have been in a while.
But its so very hard for me to do.
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.
8 of Swords - The Captor
Oh dear - I think from this card it shows that my inner child and my playful side is rather tied up lol.
I am a very airy and even as a child I was a very 'serious' child, through my own desposition and then I had to be due to parental stuff - so I didnt really play in the way that others did, but immerse myself in books and learning.
So my inner child is rather stuck, but this card offers a way of being set free by the swords too, to spend more time in fun activities and to get that little bit of 'child like wonder' back. I guess I have been rather wrapped up in the ups and downs of the last couple of years that I need to just be free a bit more.
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.
THe Emperor
Be the BOSS of your life. Do not feel the need to answer or explain yourself and your ways to anyone.
Do not worry or feel that you have to consider others and their needs all the time.
Do not give away yourself or your power.
This Emperor is here showing me all the ways of bringing together my own personal power, and to consolidate it into a really solid foundation.
This is the energy I need to be able to not be blown by the winds of others. Whilst I can see how awesome it is that my anxiety doesnt stop me from going out or having panic attacks about work - it has a far more 'under the radar' appearance every day that I hadn't really noticed until doing this spread - and actually it still very much controls and limits the relationships to others and to Spirit.
The Emperor I feel is going to be my new BFF. Being confident and self assured - but not a crazy dictator, but just firm and sure of my needs and my resources and my boundaries.
To show my anxiety who is the real Boss and ruler of my life - ME.
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.
3 of Chalices (Cups) The Kindred
The Sun, The Moon, The Stars - the Divine, my HGA and my Self.
Seeing how things are part of a 'fellowship' of energy and that I am part of this energy - and that I am held and loved and supported by the Universe. There is so much support from the Divine when one stops trying to force, manipulate or battle against it - the Ego and its battle tactics (such as my anxiety) are real evidence of that.
Whilst obviously the 3 of cups talks about friendship etc, I get a strong feeling that whilst this is true, that often we can, I can, forget how the Divine is Love and part of that Soul friendship, working together for Unity and development. There is no battle of wills, no self-serving egotistical stuff, but that the Divine seeks to be in harmony, and manifested harmony on the Earth within us.
I had never really thought of that before - but seeing it in this card, it really feels so incredibly true and so damn obvious!
How to let go of the old and let in the new - trust in the Fellowship of the Divine, you are held and you are loved.
Review
Majors 3 (Seeker Devil Emperor)
Wands 3
Cups 1
Swords 3
Pents 2
There are some strong themes in this reading.
1- to sit with the Darkness within - and the biggest Shadow aspect that this reading has brought to light (which I wasnt really aware of) is how much my anxiety still affects a lot of my life and my spiritual development. There is a lot I need to do, to be mindful of the thought processes that go on in my head as to what, how and why I do the things I do. I feel that with medication I have stopped being crazy anxiety, and I have gone back to my normal 'functioning' anxiety, which actually is a still a problem that needs to be address to progress.
2 - Be strong and stand your ground.
The Devil, Emperor, King of Swords, Queen of Wands, 6 of wands, Knight of Swords, 5 of Wands, 6 of Pents
All these cards a fighting cards, to be self empowered, guarded and feel able to make decisions and be in my own Power. The only way to do that is to sit in the darkness of my true level of anxiety and with awareness and intention to overcome. These cards are very much powerful allies and guardians for me on that way.
Here I can develop the skills of standing my ground, fighting the demons within, but also fighting for myself against the needs and wants of others, fighting against the 'should's and must do' and move into an area of my Will and what I want and need to develop. I can only do that when I stop over-giving of myself to others, to appease my anxiety demons and the needs of others.
3 - The power of the Divine in there.
The King of Pents, and the 3 of Chalices really show me how much Divine Light there is, how much support and guidance I can draw on. That Spirit and I can blend together for healing and putting myself in a better self-aware state and as such, a better vehicle for the HGA and the Divine will on Earth.
-
cearshafire
- Seeker
- Posts: 1
- Joined: 29 Jun 2018, 02:27
Re: Sacred Days of Yule 2018 - December 20 - 31
I look forward to working through this! I am probably going to use my Druid Craft deck, as I have been trying to get comfortable with this one that was gifted to me be a wonderful friend. I am such a beginner, and need to start a more regular practice. These types of exercises are perfect! Thank you!
Debby
Debby
-
holly doll
- Seeker
- Posts: 1
- Joined: 16 Dec 2018, 21:25
Re: Sacred Days of Yule 2018 - December 20 - 31
Sacred Days of Yule
Deck: Tyldwick Tarot
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.
XXI The World
I've had some vivid dreams recently, however the one I had last night really stands out. I dreamt a Puma walked into my home, along with my other cats. I wasn't fearful, just uncertain whether he meant myself or my cats harm. Apparently the Puma represents lurking danger, keeping attitudes & emotions in check, as well as aggression & raw emotion, along with power, confidence, strength & grace. The World talks about a cycle completed & leaving the past & it's baggage behind. Taking into account the card below; perhaps the challenges are more manageable next year & things are finally beginning the movement forward. Please feel free to chime in & let me know if I'm misguided!!!
2. Yule - Winter Solstice: - Dec 21st
This card shows us how best to connect to the Light within and without - it symbolises the Birth of the Sun.
6 of Swords
It tells of a time to hope, a time of guidance & transition away from challenges. Of asking Spirit for help when it is needed, & a willingness to stop & listen to my intuition in stressful times. This ties in with the previous card; 2018 has been an awful year of challenge, loss, illness, unexpected surgeries, & blocks to progress for myself & family. A family member tends to "carry baggage" rather than dealing with it, effecting the rest of the family. This family member has very recently undergone heart surgery, so to me this card also speaks about being willing to leave past heartache in the past; I’m moving forward into a new day.
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.
Knight of Staves
The inner blocks may be the constantly disrupted course of study I've been attempting to complete this year. The Knight I think is representative of my seeing the task through to the conclusion. I've been feeling frustrated by the constant turmoil & interruptions to study, so at times I've been ready to give up my study through lack of time & lack of boundaries. I know the Knight is about impetuous decision making (I'll keep going to complete my course), & also about changing residence - at this point in time its not happening lol (maybe that's where the resistance is too)
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.
4 of Staves
Strengthening an attitude of gratitude, & taking some time to celebrate my accomplishments & the guidance I've had to get this far. All is now well & as it should be with the family member, so perhaps the fiery frustration of the previous card needs to be tempered with the wisdom of stability instead of reactivity; realising that things are now better than they were & it is to be celebrated.
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.
8 of Coins
Giving my time of meditation & reflection the time it & attention deserves - I need to be more present to it & to any messages that may emerge. Because things have been pretty tumultuous recently I haven’t taken very much time to connect with those I love. So far as my work is concerned I’m doing it I’ve not been “taking it in” - I’ve found myself going through the motions & not enjoying it.
6. Festival of Life, Christmas: - Dec 25th
This card shows us how to connect directly with Spirit.
5 of Staves Rx.
This card was an interesting reveal. At the moment I'm physical & emotionally exhausted & my focus is pretty scattered as a result, unfortunately there are many needs competing to be met at the moment & the more "earthy" things are taking my attention. I'm finding myself becoming more frustrated & resentful as a result; I need to return to the lessons of the 4 of Staves to find the balance & put more time aside to meditate, reflect & connect.
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 of Cups
Sometimes attending to those we love is about putting healthy & respectful boundaries in place. I got a “hit’ on the information the instant the card revealed. Old familial co-dependent aspects that have been in place for many years have had their day & must stop; it’s time for some emotional housecleaning so we can all move forward. Leaning on others is exhausting for all involved & we tend to learn the lessons best when we stand in who we are.
At first glance this may seen counter intuitive, however there are been many boundary violations & sometimes unreasonable expectations placed on shoulders over the years, so it’s more than time to release the past energies to come fully into the present in order to place healthier boundaries; protecting myself & teaching others to enforce their own healthy boundaries to protect themselves.
8. Birth of Freyja: - Dec 27th
This card points to issues of love, luck, artistic and creative expression and female wisdom.
X Wheel of Fortune
A change in circumstance or perspective for the positive for us so far as “luck” is concerned. I’ve had struggles with this in the past - with the Wheel forecasting change; & change has come in huge swamping waves. Through this I found that if I don’t resist the Wheel the changes are much more easy to navigate. I’m really hoping this is the case & my creativity will have the opportunity to do as it needs to. Taking into account the nurturing & release of the previous card I can only assume that the shift in the Wheel will impact myself & my family in a way that will help us to progress instead of going in dizzying circles.
9. Feast of Alcyone: - Dec 28th
This card gives us a personal inner message - one that speaks directly to our heart and spirit.
2 of Cups
A time of healing & peace, partnership & harmony. I’m glad this card revealed at this time; when we spend so much time being serious or intent in seeing to others needs; in many ways we become invisible to ourselves - our wants & needs often go unmet. This card in many ways is a message to take in the lessons of balance & duality, of being mindful of my relationship & its movement into a new phase & the healing needed to facilitate its growth.; while initiating paths & places to nurture the self so I can be there in whichever perspective is needed. If I can’t be there healthy & as a partner for myself - how can I be there healthy & as a partner for my family…?
Looking at the card itself, I want to take a book, wander barefoot through the garden, then find a seat under a tree; relaxing & absorbing the connection between all - a healing & peaceful time. Although the caduceus doesn’t appear on this card as on traditional decks, I believe the garden, although manicured in most places, while the background trees & shrubs are somewhat overgrown; representative of those times in life when healing is found in seeing ourselves as part of everything - our partner, family, community, tribe, country, planet - a different kind of partnership.
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 Moon
“Stay wild moon child” is what jumped out at me when this card revealed. The moon tells me I need to see things from a different perspective & learn to not fear how others will react to my playful side. This goes back a long way; back to childhood where my sense of humour was frowned on, judged, belittled. I was told I was an idiot, stupid, told to “grow up” as the same time as being told “I was only a child “.
My inner child also speaks of my shadow - that of ignoring my fun side & damping down my creativity to fit in with the rest of the herd in order to survive an abusive childhood. Pretty confusing when you are trying to find out who you are; which is why this card is revealing truths & shadows around the “Abusive/Smother Mother archetype” involving fun & creativity. I was called to witchcraft & immediately found my tribe & began to allow my fun side to have a voice & to not back down from embracing & getting to know different perspectives of myself. This card is saying I do need to forget who is watching, ignore the insecurities & just enjoy exploring my creative path & the fun side of the self.
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.
4 of Coins
Although this card is often seen as the “miser” card, I see it as someone who has perhaps given too much now needing to protect their heart & those lower energy centres from yet again giving too much of themselves; as they have in the past. Not everything is meant to be shared & this card speaks of not offering to help others out when they have issues - it’s THEIR lesson & even though I might see how to make a path easier I don’t know all of the answers & I need to be relaxed & step back.
My husband very recently had a heart attack with a 100% blockage of a major artery & 70% blockages of minor ones. However, he has known of his family history of heart issues & wouldn’t take the steps to ameliorate his risk - much weight was gained & he refused to listen to my concerns or medical advice. Only after a heart attack & subsequent surgery was any attention paid. I need to step back now & allow him to understand the “new normal”.
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.
VI The Lovers
Major life choices popped up for me; to make these choices via reconnecting with myself - both on an earthly, & spiritual level. For me, the Lovers speak of duality & polarity & being able to “balance” the two. How to release - make the decision & do it, don’t ignore what I need to do, or project my own stuff onto others which is part of the Rx Shadow of the Lovers. Just relax with my loved one & release what needs to go…
Deck: Tyldwick Tarot
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.
- The World.png (149.72 KiB) Viewed 4370 times
I've had some vivid dreams recently, however the one I had last night really stands out. I dreamt a Puma walked into my home, along with my other cats. I wasn't fearful, just uncertain whether he meant myself or my cats harm. Apparently the Puma represents lurking danger, keeping attitudes & emotions in check, as well as aggression & raw emotion, along with power, confidence, strength & grace. The World talks about a cycle completed & leaving the past & it's baggage behind. Taking into account the card below; perhaps the challenges are more manageable next year & things are finally beginning the movement forward. Please feel free to chime in & let me know if I'm misguided!!!
2. Yule - Winter Solstice: - Dec 21st
This card shows us how best to connect to the Light within and without - it symbolises the Birth of the Sun.
- 6 of Swords.png (137.29 KiB) Viewed 4370 times
It tells of a time to hope, a time of guidance & transition away from challenges. Of asking Spirit for help when it is needed, & a willingness to stop & listen to my intuition in stressful times. This ties in with the previous card; 2018 has been an awful year of challenge, loss, illness, unexpected surgeries, & blocks to progress for myself & family. A family member tends to "carry baggage" rather than dealing with it, effecting the rest of the family. This family member has very recently undergone heart surgery, so to me this card also speaks about being willing to leave past heartache in the past; I’m moving forward into a new day.
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.
- Knight of Staves.png (151.57 KiB) Viewed 4370 times
The inner blocks may be the constantly disrupted course of study I've been attempting to complete this year. The Knight I think is representative of my seeing the task through to the conclusion. I've been feeling frustrated by the constant turmoil & interruptions to study, so at times I've been ready to give up my study through lack of time & lack of boundaries. I know the Knight is about impetuous decision making (I'll keep going to complete my course), & also about changing residence - at this point in time its not happening lol (maybe that's where the resistance is too)
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.
- 4 of Staves.png (137.15 KiB) Viewed 4358 times
Strengthening an attitude of gratitude, & taking some time to celebrate my accomplishments & the guidance I've had to get this far. All is now well & as it should be with the family member, so perhaps the fiery frustration of the previous card needs to be tempered with the wisdom of stability instead of reactivity; realising that things are now better than they were & it is to be celebrated.
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.
- 8 of Coins.png (138.51 KiB) Viewed 4331 times
Giving my time of meditation & reflection the time it & attention deserves - I need to be more present to it & to any messages that may emerge. Because things have been pretty tumultuous recently I haven’t taken very much time to connect with those I love. So far as my work is concerned I’m doing it I’ve not been “taking it in” - I’ve found myself going through the motions & not enjoying it.
6. Festival of Life, Christmas: - Dec 25th
This card shows us how to connect directly with Spirit.
- 5 of Staves Rx.png (152.2 KiB) Viewed 4325 times
5 of Staves Rx.
This card was an interesting reveal. At the moment I'm physical & emotionally exhausted & my focus is pretty scattered as a result, unfortunately there are many needs competing to be met at the moment & the more "earthy" things are taking my attention. I'm finding myself becoming more frustrated & resentful as a result; I need to return to the lessons of the 4 of Staves to find the balance & put more time aside to meditate, reflect & connect.
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 of Cups.png (154.44 KiB) Viewed 4321 times
Sometimes attending to those we love is about putting healthy & respectful boundaries in place. I got a “hit’ on the information the instant the card revealed. Old familial co-dependent aspects that have been in place for many years have had their day & must stop; it’s time for some emotional housecleaning so we can all move forward. Leaning on others is exhausting for all involved & we tend to learn the lessons best when we stand in who we are.
At first glance this may seen counter intuitive, however there are been many boundary violations & sometimes unreasonable expectations placed on shoulders over the years, so it’s more than time to release the past energies to come fully into the present in order to place healthier boundaries; protecting myself & teaching others to enforce their own healthy boundaries to protect themselves.
8. Birth of Freyja: - Dec 27th
This card points to issues of love, luck, artistic and creative expression and female wisdom.
- Wheel.png (147.92 KiB) Viewed 4309 times
A change in circumstance or perspective for the positive for us so far as “luck” is concerned. I’ve had struggles with this in the past - with the Wheel forecasting change; & change has come in huge swamping waves. Through this I found that if I don’t resist the Wheel the changes are much more easy to navigate. I’m really hoping this is the case & my creativity will have the opportunity to do as it needs to. Taking into account the nurturing & release of the previous card I can only assume that the shift in the Wheel will impact myself & my family in a way that will help us to progress instead of going in dizzying circles.
9. Feast of Alcyone: - Dec 28th
This card gives us a personal inner message - one that speaks directly to our heart and spirit.
- 2 of Cups.png (150.13 KiB) Viewed 4301 times
A time of healing & peace, partnership & harmony. I’m glad this card revealed at this time; when we spend so much time being serious or intent in seeing to others needs; in many ways we become invisible to ourselves - our wants & needs often go unmet. This card in many ways is a message to take in the lessons of balance & duality, of being mindful of my relationship & its movement into a new phase & the healing needed to facilitate its growth.; while initiating paths & places to nurture the self so I can be there in whichever perspective is needed. If I can’t be there healthy & as a partner for myself - how can I be there healthy & as a partner for my family…?
Looking at the card itself, I want to take a book, wander barefoot through the garden, then find a seat under a tree; relaxing & absorbing the connection between all - a healing & peaceful time. Although the caduceus doesn’t appear on this card as on traditional decks, I believe the garden, although manicured in most places, while the background trees & shrubs are somewhat overgrown; representative of those times in life when healing is found in seeing ourselves as part of everything - our partner, family, community, tribe, country, planet - a different kind of partnership.
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.
- XVIII The Moon .png (143.81 KiB) Viewed 4294 times
“Stay wild moon child” is what jumped out at me when this card revealed. The moon tells me I need to see things from a different perspective & learn to not fear how others will react to my playful side. This goes back a long way; back to childhood where my sense of humour was frowned on, judged, belittled. I was told I was an idiot, stupid, told to “grow up” as the same time as being told “I was only a child “.
My inner child also speaks of my shadow - that of ignoring my fun side & damping down my creativity to fit in with the rest of the herd in order to survive an abusive childhood. Pretty confusing when you are trying to find out who you are; which is why this card is revealing truths & shadows around the “Abusive/Smother Mother archetype” involving fun & creativity. I was called to witchcraft & immediately found my tribe & began to allow my fun side to have a voice & to not back down from embracing & getting to know different perspectives of myself. This card is saying I do need to forget who is watching, ignore the insecurities & just enjoy exploring my creative path & the fun side of the self.
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.
- 4 of Coins.png (147.23 KiB) Viewed 4285 times
Although this card is often seen as the “miser” card, I see it as someone who has perhaps given too much now needing to protect their heart & those lower energy centres from yet again giving too much of themselves; as they have in the past. Not everything is meant to be shared & this card speaks of not offering to help others out when they have issues - it’s THEIR lesson & even though I might see how to make a path easier I don’t know all of the answers & I need to be relaxed & step back.
My husband very recently had a heart attack with a 100% blockage of a major artery & 70% blockages of minor ones. However, he has known of his family history of heart issues & wouldn’t take the steps to ameliorate his risk - much weight was gained & he refused to listen to my concerns or medical advice. Only after a heart attack & subsequent surgery was any attention paid. I need to step back now & allow him to understand the “new normal”.
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.
- VI The Lovers.png (140.94 KiB) Viewed 4285 times
Major life choices popped up for me; to make these choices via reconnecting with myself - both on an earthly, & spiritual level. For me, the Lovers speak of duality & polarity & being able to “balance” the two. How to release - make the decision & do it, don’t ignore what I need to do, or project my own stuff onto others which is part of the Rx Shadow of the Lovers. Just relax with my loved one & release what needs to go…
Re: Sacred Days of Yule 2018 - December 20 - 31
I'm so grateful for receiving an email about this spread, I was so busy with my life that I wasn't checking the forum so much. Glad I'm not too late to join in this!
______________________________________________
::: Sacred Days of Yule :::
Deck: Art Nouveau Tarot Deck + My Personal Dixit Oracle
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.
Well, I did this reading during the day of December 20ths, but I don’t know if the spread refers to the dream from the past night or from the night to come. It fits very well with my last night dream, so I’ll go with that. Maybe tomorrow I can update about how it resonates with tonight’s dream (if I do dream).
I dreamed about tarot and journaling, things I’ve been doing a lot lately and getting more and more excited about it. Also, I’ve improved my skills and my mind is getting a lot more creative doing these activities. So I’m on a plan for the Next Year vibe about all this. I don’t remember exactly the content of the dream, but I was working on my notebook, making some layouts, tasks, notes… then there was a tarot twist to the dream, but I can’t really recall.
That being said, I thing the Knight of Pentacles represents perfectly my vibe right now about tarot, journaling, planning my future and getting control of my life. My goal is self improvement and also the satisfaction of being able to do a journal and maintain a hobby, things I always struggled to do in the past. So I’m really focused and prepared to put all my efforts in this aspect of my life + I have LOTS of personal, hobby and professional projects ideas for next year.
The Dixit card is from my personal Oracle I created by gathering cards from my Dixit core game & expansions. I have over 300 dixit cards and selected my “favorite” 55 for my oracle deck. These are the cards that connected with me the most.
The card wich came today is called “The Secret Inside”. Actually, I just named it, because I decided that I’ll start doing that right now. Maybe that’s the Knight of Pentacles energy acting already.
The Secret Inside is about secrets and hidden feelings. But it’s important to notice that there’s no outside influence in the secrets being kept, because you are the one who is keeping it, from others and especially from yourself. It’s about repressed feelings, emotions and memories, not dealing with them. On the contrary, it also is about breaking free from a hidden feeling or trauma and rediscovering something hidden inside you.
What I feel about this card in the reading is that I’m finally ready to open the locker to accept the fact that it’s okay for me to plan my future and be organized.. As a teenager, I had this “grudge” against organizations, being too methodical and focused, like I was rebelling against society in my own way. But now I noticed I was actually rebelling against myself too, because that’s a part of myself that I could never get in touch with. It was something I wished for, but wasn’t able to accept, so I hid it.
But I evolved and I think I’m ready to embrace this Pentacle energy from the Knight. Because I can feel it and I can tell it’s something big and different, I know I am able to follow this path now.
Finally, the Secret Inside also warns me to not be too loud about my feeling and aspirations. Since now I’m able to focus on my goals and projects, maybe I should really concentrate all my energy on that by myself and do not “spoil” it with others energies and expectations. Sometimes we have to be quiet about our plans and feelings, so that we can succeed (I’ve been given this message a lot from my readings and draws, so it was no surprise I noticed this atmosphere here too)
Thinking about an event (which is the main theme of the reading, by I got distracted), I feel like there will be a time during next year where I'll realize something about myself, my work, my goals and my future projects, but it's up to me to discover and unlock it. From that event, I'll be able to really ride the horse of the Knight of Pentacles at full speed.
________________________________________
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.
The Solstice is here and it brings with it all this sun energy, which is perfect for us to reflect on how to integrate ourselves with our own light and the universe’s light as well. How to give birth to the sun inside us?
The Justice in this reading says to me that I have to seek the truth about myself and the world, challenging every discovery. Also, it means I have to be responsible about my actions and accept the consequences of them. I don’t need do judge myself and put myself down, but accept my past actions. I’ll be in constant improvement if I stay in tune with Justice.
The Sand Sage speaks about being at peace with yourself, accepting your inner demons (guilty, regret, emotions) so you can finally meet your true self. It’s like shaking all the sand around you so you search for all that is hidden underneath, exposing your own dirty stuff to yourself to deal with.
It also suggests that you can always find a secure home inside your own mind when things get bad. You can run away to your all safe place inside yourself, as long as you are able to deal with your own feelings and thoughts, bright or dark ones.
The pair combination talks about digging deeper inside myself to finally find my true self. I mean, I’ve been kinda lost in the past months, in all aspects of my life, even if I can’t complain much about my material life. It just felt like I was out of my way, but now I’m getting back in track.
The thing is, I’ve never reached a point in my life where I found my true self, I’ve never been there. So I can feel this different energy and I know I’m on the right path, I just need to keep my mind sharp to make the right choices, both for me and also for the benefits of others, since all good things I throw to the universe eventually will come back to me.
The path to Light within and without is a double path, going both inside me and outside me. I have to be in peace with myself and with my emotions and thoughts, learning how to learn from them and use them to my favor. But I also have to be fair and look for the truth about the world and how I perceive and interact with it. When I find this balance between the “rules” of my inside and outside worlds, I’ll be able to reach light.
________________________________________
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 Lovers tells me that I have to get clear about my belief systems and values, which is something I'm aiming for in the past few months. It's like I woke up and now I'm learning and seeings things from a lot of perspective. Getting in touch with what I believe will make it easier for me to make choices, which we do all the time! I'm on the right track to figure myself out and then I'll continue to explore the world and all its possibilities. I can't resist this change or this awakening, it's essential to my personal development.
In this perspective, the Dixit Card (no name yet) tells me that I have all the potential for a bright future right in front of me, in my boat. It's huge, shiny and beautiful, it glows with life and hope. But if I just look down, without appreaciating the world around me or even myself, the egg will never hatch. I have to figure out my destination and my goals, they are my decision to make. And when I finally get to the shore, I'm pretty sure the egg will hatch with all my wishes and dreams.
I think the cards also reminds me to connect more with people, even though I enjoy being alone a lot.
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.
The Two of Pentacles and the Dixit Card (no name yet) give me a very similar vibe at first glance. The way to purification and renewal is seeking balance in my life, knowing how to prioritize my duties and tasks and also my social interactions. As the second card suggests, I need to have a sharp eye for noticing what needs to be done to make everything flow in perfect equilibrium. Time management is important, because It enables me to do everything I want to in the most efficient and enjoyable way, if I know how to use this skill. It's also about adaptation, which is one of my most cherished traits, which I'm really proud of.
The cards also warn that, even though I have to pay attention to certain details and make things flow orderly, sometimes it's ok to now take things so seriously. Too much things to do at the same time everyday tires me out, so I also need to learn when to stop and rest. I also need rest to purify my body and soul, not only a sharp eye and quick mind. If I'm good with myself, my goals and my tasks, I feel much more relaxed and tolerant, because I know I'm in the right path and everything is fine.
The second card is also about self love, being able to shoot a love arrow to myself, and thats make sense! After all, if you don't love yourself, how can you love someone else and tolerate them?
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.
I think this one was pretty straightforward. As soon as I saw the 10 of Cups, I knew I would enjoy the Christmas Holiday with my family, which I usually am not that hyped about. Most of the time I don't feel the need to deal with family other than my parents, like I don't really have to put up effort to be present all the time. But this Christmas, it felt different, I could really enjoy everyone's presence and energy and feel comfortable and at peace, even if I got somewhat socially tired by the end of the family gathering.
The second card told me that, if I had my heart open and unlocked, as I'm the holder of all the keys to my heart and my future, I'll be able to achieve the wisdom and guidance I need from my ancestors and from the universe itself, because I'll be in peace with myself and relaxed, as my emotions will be flowing in total balance. But opening my heart to the ancestors also means embracing my family right now, because even if I'm not the one tho choose them by my side, I was born in this world connected to them, so it has to be a meaning behind that! I think I'm supposed to learn something from them and also teach them something.. Now I can see it, I can see that I can learn and grow a lot by giving love, support and attention to those who I call family. That's something I tried to do during Christmas and I couldn't be more satisfied by this decision.
6. Festival of Life, Christmas: - Dec 25th
This card shows us how to connect directly with Spirit.
The key here is the balance between my imagination/feelings/dreams (represented by the dixit card) and the power of the Emperor, which will help me build the road to the spiritual, and also to the future . The Emperor is all about creating structure, setting a direction to go and guiding growth. I have to learn how to create security and comfort during this long way towards the rainbow, which awaits for me with all the rewards I nurture deep inside me.
To connect with Spirit, the universe outside and inside, I must recognize the path I want to follow and work hard towards it. If I want personal growth and enlightment, I must grow discipline. If I want guidance to accomplish my goals, I need a clear mind and an efficient structure.
Again, I think I'm on the right path of my life right now. I may be a dreamer, wanting to cross a rainbow bridge that will lead me to the paradise, where all my dreams come true. I must realize this path is not impossible, I just have to work hard towards it. As my path is all about getting in touch with myself and the universe, I must create discipline to follow this path in the best way possible, which is why I need the Emperor.
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.
After the insight I had during the December 24th reading, I felt very excited about today's theme. The Four of Wands was a delightful card to appear, since it's all about celebration, success and excitement. It really brings back the energy of the Christmas holiday, where I could enjoy everyone's presence and celebrate with them a whole year of experiences and learnings... and also look forward to the next one! I learned how to cherish these family celebrations, which was a gift I received from myself this year.
The Dixit Card represents a lot of things for me, but for today's reading, I think it suggests that I may be able to encourage people and empower them with their own strength, making them believe in themselves and their potential. As the first card pictures, in times of celebration, there's always some happiness and hope, which can boost everyone's energy if they are able to use this to their favor.
I think my job during the remaining holiday (and also forever) is to instigate people to be the better version of themselves. I actually am already doing that by complimenting people as much as I can, recognizing their skills, talents and traits. I know how this can help them improve and grow. If they realize they have the sword in their hands already, they will notice that it depends on them how to use this to the best outcome. Will they kneel to the power of the sword, unable to use it, or will they stand up and bring order and success to their life?
With personal power and belief, we grow stronger, feeling safe and relaxed, breaking free from the chains that stopped us from reaching our sword and our full potential. I'll protect people by helping them realize how great they are. If you believe in yourself and in your power, you can make things happen. And if everyone is happy and sucessful, the celebration will be even more special.
8. Birth of Freyja: - Dec 27th
This card points to issues of love, luck, artistic and creative expression and female wisdom.
This is one of my favorite pairs, it gave me such a strong energy from the moment I draw it. The World is such a powerful card to appear and it means a lot from this day's perspective. I have luck by my side if I stay in touch with my creative power and expression. If I can engage in my creative projects with love, I'll feel whole and complete, in touch with myself and the universe, because I can feel it's calling me to that. I think it means I have to work with my own hands to build this world of happiness and love I want and deserve. And expressing my creative side is the path I should take to help me.
The Dixit Card that appeared today is one of my favorite from my decks. For me, it represents pursuit of knowledge, gaining of new information or perspective or even the expression of creativity and imagitation. It's a card that challenges you to explore further into your mind, to get in touch with your inspiration and wake up the curiosity to go deeper into the world and yourself. It's all about today's theme, which only intensifies the message from The World: go for it and get creative, it's the best way for me to stay in touch withy myself and the universe, so I can get the benefits of lvoe and luck by my side, which is something I'm already experiencing.
9. Feast of Alcyone: - Dec 28th
This card gives us a personal inner message - one that speaks directly to our heart and spirit.
This pair gave me the direct message: be alert to the chains that control me.
The Justice, which makes a second appearance, invites me to reavaluate myself and my current situation to see what can be improved and what I really deserve to improve. It's not the time only to celebrate for the good things, it's also time to clean up my own mess. What is keeping me away from moving forward? Or delaying me? From the Dixit Card perspective, it's like I'm being controlled by someone, but I think I'm my own marionette. I have to be alert to notice the patterns and motivations of my actions and thought, so I can be able to deal with them in the most efficient way to improve my own life and my path.
It can also mean I feel kinda frustrated pursuing my lawyer career, which is something that bothered me for the past months, but I've been able to update my mindset about that. From next year, that's also something I'll be paying attention to, so I can analize what aspects of my working routine can be improved.
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.
For my surprise, The World appeared again. Since I had already drawn The Justice for a second time, I didn't expect to meet another duplicated major arcana during the activitie. What a beautiful surprise, indeed.
The Dixit card gives me a feeling of indulging in the material pleasures and just having a good time. Even though everything around the man is on fire, he couldn't be more relaxed, just enjoying himself with wine and wealth. My playful side usually manifests in moments like these, in which I can be free to just do nothing, eat whatever I want, no schedules. Like a kid do on vacations, I really like being able to stay all day in my home doing whatever comes into my mind, as if nothing else matters. Moments like those are important for me. I think it's my way to connect with my inner child, as I get more inspirated, energized and creative after spending time like that.
This way, the World encourages me to pursue this path when I need to recharge my energies. These past months, I wasn't really able to enjoy my free moments as before, because I felt a little guilty for doing that, even though I needed that break. I think now I can feel more positive about taking care of my inner child.
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.
This pair is absolutely meaningful from today's perspective! The Queen of Wands' cheerful, energetic and attractive energy should be by my side when pursuing my path, which will be filled with new discoveries and knowldege. I think I already have the fuel needed to climb all those stairs ahead of me if I keep this flame burning inside me. I should be confident of myself and honest with my feelings and desires, so I can be self-assured of my path. This way, I will be able to go smoothly, dealing with everything that appears.
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.
The Page of Cups is a card that is really followin me during the end of the year. It' was my last week card and appeared againg during one of the daily draws. And here it is again, giving me this intuitive, sensitive and creative vibe. It's telling all the time to be in touch with my feelings and intuition because good things are coming my way if I stay tuned.
The Dixit card, from the other hand, warns me that excessive judgement is not the right way to take. If I need to move one with my life to a new direction, I should release the complaints and critics I have all the time in my head. How about being more carefree? Not everything deserves a negative reaction from me. Maybe if I focus on myself and my inner world, as suggested by the Page, I won't need to be deal with so much stress from the outside.
For this new year, I think I'll have to be more sensitive and intuitive, leaving behind the excessive worrying and complaying, so my life can flow more easily.
______________________________________________
::: Sacred Days of Yule :::
Deck: Art Nouveau Tarot Deck + My Personal Dixit Oracle
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.
Well, I did this reading during the day of December 20ths, but I don’t know if the spread refers to the dream from the past night or from the night to come. It fits very well with my last night dream, so I’ll go with that. Maybe tomorrow I can update about how it resonates with tonight’s dream (if I do dream).
I dreamed about tarot and journaling, things I’ve been doing a lot lately and getting more and more excited about it. Also, I’ve improved my skills and my mind is getting a lot more creative doing these activities. So I’m on a plan for the Next Year vibe about all this. I don’t remember exactly the content of the dream, but I was working on my notebook, making some layouts, tasks, notes… then there was a tarot twist to the dream, but I can’t really recall.
That being said, I thing the Knight of Pentacles represents perfectly my vibe right now about tarot, journaling, planning my future and getting control of my life. My goal is self improvement and also the satisfaction of being able to do a journal and maintain a hobby, things I always struggled to do in the past. So I’m really focused and prepared to put all my efforts in this aspect of my life + I have LOTS of personal, hobby and professional projects ideas for next year.
The Dixit card is from my personal Oracle I created by gathering cards from my Dixit core game & expansions. I have over 300 dixit cards and selected my “favorite” 55 for my oracle deck. These are the cards that connected with me the most.
The card wich came today is called “The Secret Inside”. Actually, I just named it, because I decided that I’ll start doing that right now. Maybe that’s the Knight of Pentacles energy acting already.
The Secret Inside is about secrets and hidden feelings. But it’s important to notice that there’s no outside influence in the secrets being kept, because you are the one who is keeping it, from others and especially from yourself. It’s about repressed feelings, emotions and memories, not dealing with them. On the contrary, it also is about breaking free from a hidden feeling or trauma and rediscovering something hidden inside you.
What I feel about this card in the reading is that I’m finally ready to open the locker to accept the fact that it’s okay for me to plan my future and be organized.. As a teenager, I had this “grudge” against organizations, being too methodical and focused, like I was rebelling against society in my own way. But now I noticed I was actually rebelling against myself too, because that’s a part of myself that I could never get in touch with. It was something I wished for, but wasn’t able to accept, so I hid it.
But I evolved and I think I’m ready to embrace this Pentacle energy from the Knight. Because I can feel it and I can tell it’s something big and different, I know I am able to follow this path now.
Finally, the Secret Inside also warns me to not be too loud about my feeling and aspirations. Since now I’m able to focus on my goals and projects, maybe I should really concentrate all my energy on that by myself and do not “spoil” it with others energies and expectations. Sometimes we have to be quiet about our plans and feelings, so that we can succeed (I’ve been given this message a lot from my readings and draws, so it was no surprise I noticed this atmosphere here too)
Thinking about an event (which is the main theme of the reading, by I got distracted), I feel like there will be a time during next year where I'll realize something about myself, my work, my goals and my future projects, but it's up to me to discover and unlock it. From that event, I'll be able to really ride the horse of the Knight of Pentacles at full speed.
________________________________________
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.
The Solstice is here and it brings with it all this sun energy, which is perfect for us to reflect on how to integrate ourselves with our own light and the universe’s light as well. How to give birth to the sun inside us?
The Justice in this reading says to me that I have to seek the truth about myself and the world, challenging every discovery. Also, it means I have to be responsible about my actions and accept the consequences of them. I don’t need do judge myself and put myself down, but accept my past actions. I’ll be in constant improvement if I stay in tune with Justice.
The Sand Sage speaks about being at peace with yourself, accepting your inner demons (guilty, regret, emotions) so you can finally meet your true self. It’s like shaking all the sand around you so you search for all that is hidden underneath, exposing your own dirty stuff to yourself to deal with.
It also suggests that you can always find a secure home inside your own mind when things get bad. You can run away to your all safe place inside yourself, as long as you are able to deal with your own feelings and thoughts, bright or dark ones.
The pair combination talks about digging deeper inside myself to finally find my true self. I mean, I’ve been kinda lost in the past months, in all aspects of my life, even if I can’t complain much about my material life. It just felt like I was out of my way, but now I’m getting back in track.
The thing is, I’ve never reached a point in my life where I found my true self, I’ve never been there. So I can feel this different energy and I know I’m on the right path, I just need to keep my mind sharp to make the right choices, both for me and also for the benefits of others, since all good things I throw to the universe eventually will come back to me.
The path to Light within and without is a double path, going both inside me and outside me. I have to be in peace with myself and with my emotions and thoughts, learning how to learn from them and use them to my favor. But I also have to be fair and look for the truth about the world and how I perceive and interact with it. When I find this balance between the “rules” of my inside and outside worlds, I’ll be able to reach light.
________________________________________
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 Lovers tells me that I have to get clear about my belief systems and values, which is something I'm aiming for in the past few months. It's like I woke up and now I'm learning and seeings things from a lot of perspective. Getting in touch with what I believe will make it easier for me to make choices, which we do all the time! I'm on the right track to figure myself out and then I'll continue to explore the world and all its possibilities. I can't resist this change or this awakening, it's essential to my personal development.
In this perspective, the Dixit Card (no name yet) tells me that I have all the potential for a bright future right in front of me, in my boat. It's huge, shiny and beautiful, it glows with life and hope. But if I just look down, without appreaciating the world around me or even myself, the egg will never hatch. I have to figure out my destination and my goals, they are my decision to make. And when I finally get to the shore, I'm pretty sure the egg will hatch with all my wishes and dreams.
I think the cards also reminds me to connect more with people, even though I enjoy being alone a lot.
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.
The Two of Pentacles and the Dixit Card (no name yet) give me a very similar vibe at first glance. The way to purification and renewal is seeking balance in my life, knowing how to prioritize my duties and tasks and also my social interactions. As the second card suggests, I need to have a sharp eye for noticing what needs to be done to make everything flow in perfect equilibrium. Time management is important, because It enables me to do everything I want to in the most efficient and enjoyable way, if I know how to use this skill. It's also about adaptation, which is one of my most cherished traits, which I'm really proud of.
The cards also warn that, even though I have to pay attention to certain details and make things flow orderly, sometimes it's ok to now take things so seriously. Too much things to do at the same time everyday tires me out, so I also need to learn when to stop and rest. I also need rest to purify my body and soul, not only a sharp eye and quick mind. If I'm good with myself, my goals and my tasks, I feel much more relaxed and tolerant, because I know I'm in the right path and everything is fine.
The second card is also about self love, being able to shoot a love arrow to myself, and thats make sense! After all, if you don't love yourself, how can you love someone else and tolerate them?
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.
I think this one was pretty straightforward. As soon as I saw the 10 of Cups, I knew I would enjoy the Christmas Holiday with my family, which I usually am not that hyped about. Most of the time I don't feel the need to deal with family other than my parents, like I don't really have to put up effort to be present all the time. But this Christmas, it felt different, I could really enjoy everyone's presence and energy and feel comfortable and at peace, even if I got somewhat socially tired by the end of the family gathering.
The second card told me that, if I had my heart open and unlocked, as I'm the holder of all the keys to my heart and my future, I'll be able to achieve the wisdom and guidance I need from my ancestors and from the universe itself, because I'll be in peace with myself and relaxed, as my emotions will be flowing in total balance. But opening my heart to the ancestors also means embracing my family right now, because even if I'm not the one tho choose them by my side, I was born in this world connected to them, so it has to be a meaning behind that! I think I'm supposed to learn something from them and also teach them something.. Now I can see it, I can see that I can learn and grow a lot by giving love, support and attention to those who I call family. That's something I tried to do during Christmas and I couldn't be more satisfied by this decision.
6. Festival of Life, Christmas: - Dec 25th
This card shows us how to connect directly with Spirit.
The key here is the balance between my imagination/feelings/dreams (represented by the dixit card) and the power of the Emperor, which will help me build the road to the spiritual, and also to the future . The Emperor is all about creating structure, setting a direction to go and guiding growth. I have to learn how to create security and comfort during this long way towards the rainbow, which awaits for me with all the rewards I nurture deep inside me.
To connect with Spirit, the universe outside and inside, I must recognize the path I want to follow and work hard towards it. If I want personal growth and enlightment, I must grow discipline. If I want guidance to accomplish my goals, I need a clear mind and an efficient structure.
Again, I think I'm on the right path of my life right now. I may be a dreamer, wanting to cross a rainbow bridge that will lead me to the paradise, where all my dreams come true. I must realize this path is not impossible, I just have to work hard towards it. As my path is all about getting in touch with myself and the universe, I must create discipline to follow this path in the best way possible, which is why I need the Emperor.
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.
After the insight I had during the December 24th reading, I felt very excited about today's theme. The Four of Wands was a delightful card to appear, since it's all about celebration, success and excitement. It really brings back the energy of the Christmas holiday, where I could enjoy everyone's presence and celebrate with them a whole year of experiences and learnings... and also look forward to the next one! I learned how to cherish these family celebrations, which was a gift I received from myself this year.
The Dixit Card represents a lot of things for me, but for today's reading, I think it suggests that I may be able to encourage people and empower them with their own strength, making them believe in themselves and their potential. As the first card pictures, in times of celebration, there's always some happiness and hope, which can boost everyone's energy if they are able to use this to their favor.
I think my job during the remaining holiday (and also forever) is to instigate people to be the better version of themselves. I actually am already doing that by complimenting people as much as I can, recognizing their skills, talents and traits. I know how this can help them improve and grow. If they realize they have the sword in their hands already, they will notice that it depends on them how to use this to the best outcome. Will they kneel to the power of the sword, unable to use it, or will they stand up and bring order and success to their life?
With personal power and belief, we grow stronger, feeling safe and relaxed, breaking free from the chains that stopped us from reaching our sword and our full potential. I'll protect people by helping them realize how great they are. If you believe in yourself and in your power, you can make things happen. And if everyone is happy and sucessful, the celebration will be even more special.
8. Birth of Freyja: - Dec 27th
This card points to issues of love, luck, artistic and creative expression and female wisdom.
This is one of my favorite pairs, it gave me such a strong energy from the moment I draw it. The World is such a powerful card to appear and it means a lot from this day's perspective. I have luck by my side if I stay in touch with my creative power and expression. If I can engage in my creative projects with love, I'll feel whole and complete, in touch with myself and the universe, because I can feel it's calling me to that. I think it means I have to work with my own hands to build this world of happiness and love I want and deserve. And expressing my creative side is the path I should take to help me.
The Dixit Card that appeared today is one of my favorite from my decks. For me, it represents pursuit of knowledge, gaining of new information or perspective or even the expression of creativity and imagitation. It's a card that challenges you to explore further into your mind, to get in touch with your inspiration and wake up the curiosity to go deeper into the world and yourself. It's all about today's theme, which only intensifies the message from The World: go for it and get creative, it's the best way for me to stay in touch withy myself and the universe, so I can get the benefits of lvoe and luck by my side, which is something I'm already experiencing.
9. Feast of Alcyone: - Dec 28th
This card gives us a personal inner message - one that speaks directly to our heart and spirit.
This pair gave me the direct message: be alert to the chains that control me.
The Justice, which makes a second appearance, invites me to reavaluate myself and my current situation to see what can be improved and what I really deserve to improve. It's not the time only to celebrate for the good things, it's also time to clean up my own mess. What is keeping me away from moving forward? Or delaying me? From the Dixit Card perspective, it's like I'm being controlled by someone, but I think I'm my own marionette. I have to be alert to notice the patterns and motivations of my actions and thought, so I can be able to deal with them in the most efficient way to improve my own life and my path.
It can also mean I feel kinda frustrated pursuing my lawyer career, which is something that bothered me for the past months, but I've been able to update my mindset about that. From next year, that's also something I'll be paying attention to, so I can analize what aspects of my working routine can be improved.
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.
For my surprise, The World appeared again. Since I had already drawn The Justice for a second time, I didn't expect to meet another duplicated major arcana during the activitie. What a beautiful surprise, indeed.
The Dixit card gives me a feeling of indulging in the material pleasures and just having a good time. Even though everything around the man is on fire, he couldn't be more relaxed, just enjoying himself with wine and wealth. My playful side usually manifests in moments like these, in which I can be free to just do nothing, eat whatever I want, no schedules. Like a kid do on vacations, I really like being able to stay all day in my home doing whatever comes into my mind, as if nothing else matters. Moments like those are important for me. I think it's my way to connect with my inner child, as I get more inspirated, energized and creative after spending time like that.
This way, the World encourages me to pursue this path when I need to recharge my energies. These past months, I wasn't really able to enjoy my free moments as before, because I felt a little guilty for doing that, even though I needed that break. I think now I can feel more positive about taking care of my inner child.
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.
This pair is absolutely meaningful from today's perspective! The Queen of Wands' cheerful, energetic and attractive energy should be by my side when pursuing my path, which will be filled with new discoveries and knowldege. I think I already have the fuel needed to climb all those stairs ahead of me if I keep this flame burning inside me. I should be confident of myself and honest with my feelings and desires, so I can be self-assured of my path. This way, I will be able to go smoothly, dealing with everything that appears.
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.
The Page of Cups is a card that is really followin me during the end of the year. It' was my last week card and appeared againg during one of the daily draws. And here it is again, giving me this intuitive, sensitive and creative vibe. It's telling all the time to be in touch with my feelings and intuition because good things are coming my way if I stay tuned.
The Dixit card, from the other hand, warns me that excessive judgement is not the right way to take. If I need to move one with my life to a new direction, I should release the complaints and critics I have all the time in my head. How about being more carefree? Not everything deserves a negative reaction from me. Maybe if I focus on myself and my inner world, as suggested by the Page, I won't need to be deal with so much stress from the outside.
For this new year, I think I'll have to be more sensitive and intuitive, leaving behind the excessive worrying and complaying, so my life can flow more easily.
-
Joan Marie
- Forum Designer
- Sage
- Posts: 5306
- Joined: 22 Apr 2018, 21:52
Re: Sacred Days of Yule 2018 - December 20 - 31
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.
I had a very vivid dream last night, it was actually the one I woke up from today, December 20th. And this is the card I drew.
My dream had a lot of people in it, real 3 dimensional people. There were people very close to me in my life and others I did not know but who were introduced to me as relatives. Some of them spoke a language I did not know. There was a strong feeling of past and present (and future?) kind of all being one thing. And I felt the urge to dig deeper within myself to know more about them, about everything around me. I realised I had been negligent of that and maintaining little protection walls which kept me from getting closer to these people.
The images of the people in my dream were so solid and clear, if I could draw well, I'd be able to render them. If I saw one of them on the street right now I'd recognise them.
I don't always remember my dreams so well, but this one really stayed with me and I thought about it a lot after I awoke. So it was interesting to me to see that Day 1 of this exercise was about dreams.
What message is in that dream that this card, the six of Coins, could be pointing to?
The many people in my dream is not unlike the many hands in this card. All different yet united in some purpose, giving and taking, as we all do.
I have a hunch what event this card may be pointing to but I hesitate to write it here, mostly because it feels holy and as if it should not be spoken of, not here, not to anyone. But I will keep it in my heart and be ready as things unfold this year.
I already feel a change of season in my heart.
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.
What a delightfully surprising draw!
This deck, The Spolia Tarot, includes zodiac and element cards. I've decided for this to just shuffle them into the deck.
I had a pretty intense experience with sunflowers this past summer. I grew some from seed in giant pots on my balcony and it was a huge wonderfully chaotic success. They took over everything with their huge tall stalks and bright sunny heads, created an entire ecosystem for bumblebees to pollinate them (I've never seen so many at once) and little birds who perched in their stalks and leaves and ate the millions of seeds they produced.
I took hundreds of photos of them at every stage, in every light. I even kept some of the dried petals in little jars which I gave to friends. I keep one on my desk like a little sun.
I'm looking so forward to next summer and I feel like sunflowers are going to be a seasonal ritual for us here. And my partner on this project, and everything else in my life really, is a Leo. And this particular image of a Leo suits him quite well.
Could the message of how to connect to the light within really be this simple, this direct? How wonderful!
The whole "Sunflower Project" was one of complete optimism. There were doubters. That it worked was a joy but that it worked so well and offered so many surprise benefits was a gift.
But it was work. I nurtured them from seed in a little "shelter" I built. Planted the seedlings, hauled tons of earth up to the balcony to fill the giant pots and kept them watered (every night!) through the brutally hot dry summer we had here. It was purely an act of love. It really made no sense. I'm grateful now for this chance to consider the experience in light of what it is to me symbolically, spiritually.
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.
I have some goals, ideas, things I'd like to do and accomplish. But are those things the same as my "dreams?"
I thought they were until just this moment. I started to try and interpret this card in relation to those things and was kind of stumped at what the "Earth" card was trying to tell me about them.
But now, suddenly I realise that my "dreams" are unformed. And that's what this card is trying to show me. I need to take time and give my dreams form. Like a lump of clay on a potter's wheel. I need to really meditate on that.
What a profound message this is for me and how auspicious for it to come at this time of year as we reflect on our lives. This is a topic deserving of some deep, deep reflection for me.
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.
I think my purification and renewal will come from a rededication to meditation practice. This card reminds me about the scattered focus that hinders me so often. But the thing is, I do have a lot of varied interests and ideas. I need to be to view myself as being able to even handle all of that or rather how I can do it.
About the tolerance thing, I'd like to go one better and actually seek to understand and enjoy others more. "Tolerating" others doesn't seem like quite enough for me. No one seeks to be just tolerated. We all seek to be understood, appreciated.
Interaction with others can be stimulating or draining. I have too often given into the latter. Embracing fully my own varied interests (without becoming overwhelmed) will make interactions with others more interesting because my mind will be generally more open and receiving. I will be able to bring a better energy to situations. The idea is to drink from many cups and enrich my soul.
This card reminds me that focus is important but it doesn't mean I can't focus on several things. I see meditation as a method of setting my mind right for this.
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.
I cannot help but think of my mother. She was like this Queen, beautiful and fun, traversing an unstable landscape. The tendency I have when I consider seeking her wisdom and guidance is to look to her from a child's point of view. But I am far from a child. Could I possibly seek to communicate with her as an equal, see her not in some lofty ethereal position, but as a woman, like me, who made mistakes, learned some things, cried, laughed loved and even hated sometimes? I had trouble with my verb tenses there. My mother has passed and I am still here, making mistakes, learning things, crying, laughing, loving and even hating sometimes.
As she lay dying in December of 2006, all 6 of her children stood around her bed and thanked her, one by one, for everything she had done. We all reported to her that we were okay, happy even. Thinking that was what she would most want to hear as she passed, that her kids were all right and that we were grateful.
Later I thought how sad it was that it never occurred to any of us to ask her how it was for her, life I mean, or even just to say, "I hope you had a good time while you were here. I hope at least some of it was fun." We only saw her in terms of ourselves, as her children.
When my father was ill, I remembered this. And I did ask him about his life. And he told me some very important things about who he was and what he learned. He looked me right in my eyes at one point and he said, "I was loved!" I will never forget that moment or those words or the look in his eye when he said it. It was like he realised it that moment and what it meant, and lucky me, so did I.
I think of all this in terms of the question of how to communicate with the ancestors when looking for wisdom and guidance. With love and curiosity and openness. Give them the space and comfort and trust to open up to you. Let them tell you things that maybe they didn't even know until you gave them a chance to tell you. After all, whether they are still here or if they've passed to the spirit world, they are just human.
xox mom and dad.
6. Festival of Life, Christmas: - Dec 25th
This card shows us how to connect directly with Spirit.
Fire is a powerful force, maybe the most powerful, certainly the most intense. Fire needs to be stoked, kindled, fed at all times. It also needs to be contained lest it consume everything. This makes me think of the power of ritual and the role it plays in firing up the spirit in a gradual way and how it gives direction to the spirit.
This is an interesting way to understand ritual, as a stoker and guide of the spiritual fire.
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.
Restoring balance. That's a really helpful point of view when thinking about relationships with family and friends.
(I want to continue this thought and will later but at the moment a holiday family obligation requires my attention. So, how appropriate! Until later.)
I'm back, it's the next day and I'm not so sure there is much to add. Nurturing is all about balance. Balance is restored through knowledge, through charm, through interest. I wonder how many relationship difficulties could be resolved or improved by looking at the people and the situation from this point of view. It feels like one of those things we do instinctively, look for balance, but to do it consciously would put more power, more intention behind the effort.
8. Birth of Freyja: - Dec 27th
This card points to issues of love, luck, artistic and creative expression and female wisdom.
Another Zodiac card!
And what an exciting card to pull, well ever, but especially now, for this day. Love, luck, artistic expression and female wisdom all feel like the same thing to me. It all comes together in a spark that can light up a room, start something happening, and bring other people into it. Sparks catch.
But while it is important to be aware and receptive to the sparks and meteor and bolts, it's also important to not speak of it too much because drawing attention to the magical can break the spell. Do not over-analyse a magical gift, charm, beauty, insight, love, etc. Just regard them fully and enjoy the life and spirit they bring.
9. Feast of Alcyone: - Dec 28th
This card gives us a personal inner message - one that speaks directly to our heart and spirit.
She is calling me, I can feel it, to continue and expand this inward journey of reflection on the mysteries. And not to let doubt of my capacities limit me. This is very encouraging.
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.
What a pretty card this is. With so much to tell me. Textures, colors, scents. Adult life can get very busy and maybe sitting in the grass or staring out the window take time away from more "productive" things, but it is this exploration, these little vacations into nature that restore me. And I am surrounded by bits of nature.
Never become so busy or distracted as to not notice the graceful line of a leaf, or the smell of wet earth or the feel of a flower petal. Even if it's only for a few seconds.
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.
My first thought is, sleep well. Nothing makes me feel better than having slept well. And having interesting dreams, which I often do. I've been thinking that I need to pay more attention to my sleeping habits and not take sleep for granted. This may involve employing some rituals to induce sleep and dreaming. It's known that proper sleep clears our brains of chemical build-ups and also helps us to sort the information we take in while awake, sort of filing and arranging it.
This is an area of my life that needs improvement and I need to take an active role. Doing so will reduce stress which helps everything be better but especially in allowing my more detached and philosophical side to flourish.
This is some extremely practical advice I would do very well to heed.
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.
I love the ambiguity of this card. I can't tell if the hands are tossing the cups into the air or if they are trying to catch them. This fits so beautifully with the idea of this day, releasing the old and letting in the new.
Maybe it's all part of the same action, like breathing in and out. Neither is good nor bad. Both are necessary and dependent on each other. The idea of a "clean slate" is kind of a lie. Life continues. And every moment is new. And every moment I have a choice, maybe not about exactly what i am doing, but about what I am thinking, how I am thinking.
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.
I had a very vivid dream last night, it was actually the one I woke up from today, December 20th. And this is the card I drew.
- Day One
My dream had a lot of people in it, real 3 dimensional people. There were people very close to me in my life and others I did not know but who were introduced to me as relatives. Some of them spoke a language I did not know. There was a strong feeling of past and present (and future?) kind of all being one thing. And I felt the urge to dig deeper within myself to know more about them, about everything around me. I realised I had been negligent of that and maintaining little protection walls which kept me from getting closer to these people.
The images of the people in my dream were so solid and clear, if I could draw well, I'd be able to render them. If I saw one of them on the street right now I'd recognise them.
I don't always remember my dreams so well, but this one really stayed with me and I thought about it a lot after I awoke. So it was interesting to me to see that Day 1 of this exercise was about dreams.
What message is in that dream that this card, the six of Coins, could be pointing to?
The many people in my dream is not unlike the many hands in this card. All different yet united in some purpose, giving and taking, as we all do.
I have a hunch what event this card may be pointing to but I hesitate to write it here, mostly because it feels holy and as if it should not be spoken of, not here, not to anyone. But I will keep it in my heart and be ready as things unfold this year.
I already feel a change of season in my heart.
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.
What a delightfully surprising draw!
- Leo
- close up
This deck, The Spolia Tarot, includes zodiac and element cards. I've decided for this to just shuffle them into the deck.
I had a pretty intense experience with sunflowers this past summer. I grew some from seed in giant pots on my balcony and it was a huge wonderfully chaotic success. They took over everything with their huge tall stalks and bright sunny heads, created an entire ecosystem for bumblebees to pollinate them (I've never seen so many at once) and little birds who perched in their stalks and leaves and ate the millions of seeds they produced.
I took hundreds of photos of them at every stage, in every light. I even kept some of the dried petals in little jars which I gave to friends. I keep one on my desk like a little sun.
- A little jar of Sunshine
I'm looking so forward to next summer and I feel like sunflowers are going to be a seasonal ritual for us here. And my partner on this project, and everything else in my life really, is a Leo. And this particular image of a Leo suits him quite well.
Could the message of how to connect to the light within really be this simple, this direct? How wonderful!
The whole "Sunflower Project" was one of complete optimism. There were doubters. That it worked was a joy but that it worked so well and offered so many surprise benefits was a gift.
But it was work. I nurtured them from seed in a little "shelter" I built. Planted the seedlings, hauled tons of earth up to the balcony to fill the giant pots and kept them watered (every night!) through the brutally hot dry summer we had here. It was purely an act of love. It really made no sense. I'm grateful now for this chance to consider the experience in light of what it is to me symbolically, spiritually.
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.
- Earth
I have some goals, ideas, things I'd like to do and accomplish. But are those things the same as my "dreams?"
I thought they were until just this moment. I started to try and interpret this card in relation to those things and was kind of stumped at what the "Earth" card was trying to tell me about them.
But now, suddenly I realise that my "dreams" are unformed. And that's what this card is trying to show me. I need to take time and give my dreams form. Like a lump of clay on a potter's wheel. I need to really meditate on that.
What a profound message this is for me and how auspicious for it to come at this time of year as we reflect on our lives. This is a topic deserving of some deep, deep reflection for me.
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.
- Seven of Cups
I think my purification and renewal will come from a rededication to meditation practice. This card reminds me about the scattered focus that hinders me so often. But the thing is, I do have a lot of varied interests and ideas. I need to be to view myself as being able to even handle all of that or rather how I can do it.
About the tolerance thing, I'd like to go one better and actually seek to understand and enjoy others more. "Tolerating" others doesn't seem like quite enough for me. No one seeks to be just tolerated. We all seek to be understood, appreciated.
Interaction with others can be stimulating or draining. I have too often given into the latter. Embracing fully my own varied interests (without becoming overwhelmed) will make interactions with others more interesting because my mind will be generally more open and receiving. I will be able to bring a better energy to situations. The idea is to drink from many cups and enrich my soul.
This card reminds me that focus is important but it doesn't mean I can't focus on several things. I see meditation as a method of setting my mind right for this.
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.
- Queen of Coins
I cannot help but think of my mother. She was like this Queen, beautiful and fun, traversing an unstable landscape. The tendency I have when I consider seeking her wisdom and guidance is to look to her from a child's point of view. But I am far from a child. Could I possibly seek to communicate with her as an equal, see her not in some lofty ethereal position, but as a woman, like me, who made mistakes, learned some things, cried, laughed loved and even hated sometimes? I had trouble with my verb tenses there. My mother has passed and I am still here, making mistakes, learning things, crying, laughing, loving and even hating sometimes.
As she lay dying in December of 2006, all 6 of her children stood around her bed and thanked her, one by one, for everything she had done. We all reported to her that we were okay, happy even. Thinking that was what she would most want to hear as she passed, that her kids were all right and that we were grateful.
Later I thought how sad it was that it never occurred to any of us to ask her how it was for her, life I mean, or even just to say, "I hope you had a good time while you were here. I hope at least some of it was fun." We only saw her in terms of ourselves, as her children.
When my father was ill, I remembered this. And I did ask him about his life. And he told me some very important things about who he was and what he learned. He looked me right in my eyes at one point and he said, "I was loved!" I will never forget that moment or those words or the look in his eye when he said it. It was like he realised it that moment and what it meant, and lucky me, so did I.
I think of all this in terms of the question of how to communicate with the ancestors when looking for wisdom and guidance. With love and curiosity and openness. Give them the space and comfort and trust to open up to you. Let them tell you things that maybe they didn't even know until you gave them a chance to tell you. After all, whether they are still here or if they've passed to the spirit world, they are just human.
xox mom and dad.
6. Festival of Life, Christmas: - Dec 25th
This card shows us how to connect directly with Spirit.
- The Element: Fire
Fire is a powerful force, maybe the most powerful, certainly the most intense. Fire needs to be stoked, kindled, fed at all times. It also needs to be contained lest it consume everything. This makes me think of the power of ritual and the role it plays in firing up the spirit in a gradual way and how it gives direction to the spirit.
This is an interesting way to understand ritual, as a stoker and guide of the spiritual fire.
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.
- Libra
Restoring balance. That's a really helpful point of view when thinking about relationships with family and friends.
(I want to continue this thought and will later but at the moment a holiday family obligation requires my attention. So, how appropriate! Until later.)
I'm back, it's the next day and I'm not so sure there is much to add. Nurturing is all about balance. Balance is restored through knowledge, through charm, through interest. I wonder how many relationship difficulties could be resolved or improved by looking at the people and the situation from this point of view. It feels like one of those things we do instinctively, look for balance, but to do it consciously would put more power, more intention behind the effort.
8. Birth of Freyja: - Dec 27th
This card points to issues of love, luck, artistic and creative expression and female wisdom.
- Aquarius
Another Zodiac card!
And what an exciting card to pull, well ever, but especially now, for this day. Love, luck, artistic expression and female wisdom all feel like the same thing to me. It all comes together in a spark that can light up a room, start something happening, and bring other people into it. Sparks catch.
But while it is important to be aware and receptive to the sparks and meteor and bolts, it's also important to not speak of it too much because drawing attention to the magical can break the spell. Do not over-analyse a magical gift, charm, beauty, insight, love, etc. Just regard them fully and enjoy the life and spirit they bring.
9. Feast of Alcyone: - Dec 28th
This card gives us a personal inner message - one that speaks directly to our heart and spirit.
- The Hight Priestess
She is calling me, I can feel it, to continue and expand this inward journey of reflection on the mysteries. And not to let doubt of my capacities limit me. This is very encouraging.
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.
- Six of Cups
What a pretty card this is. With so much to tell me. Textures, colors, scents. Adult life can get very busy and maybe sitting in the grass or staring out the window take time away from more "productive" things, but it is this exploration, these little vacations into nature that restore me. And I am surrounded by bits of nature.
Never become so busy or distracted as to not notice the graceful line of a leaf, or the smell of wet earth or the feel of a flower petal. Even if it's only for a few seconds.
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.
- Four of Swords
My first thought is, sleep well. Nothing makes me feel better than having slept well. And having interesting dreams, which I often do. I've been thinking that I need to pay more attention to my sleeping habits and not take sleep for granted. This may involve employing some rituals to induce sleep and dreaming. It's known that proper sleep clears our brains of chemical build-ups and also helps us to sort the information we take in while awake, sort of filing and arranging it.
This is an area of my life that needs improvement and I need to take an active role. Doing so will reduce stress which helps everything be better but especially in allowing my more detached and philosophical side to flourish.
This is some extremely practical advice I would do very well to heed.
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.
- Ten of Cups
I love the ambiguity of this card. I can't tell if the hands are tossing the cups into the air or if they are trying to catch them. This fits so beautifully with the idea of this day, releasing the old and letting in the new.
Maybe it's all part of the same action, like breathing in and out. Neither is good nor bad. Both are necessary and dependent on each other. The idea of a "clean slate" is kind of a lie. Life continues. And every moment is new. And every moment I have a choice, maybe not about exactly what i am doing, but about what I am thinking, how I am thinking.
Button Soup Tarot, Star & Crown Oracle available @: Rabbit's Moon Tarot
Re: Sacred Days of Yule 2018 - December 20 - 31
Welcome everybody - may we all have a beautiful celebration of these very special days.
-
Charlie Brown
- Sage
- Posts: 1488
- Joined: 25 May 2018, 16:22
Re: Sacred Days of Yule 2018 - December 20 - 31
Keep in mind that when people put updates into their posts, it doesn't register as a new posting, which means that it won't go to the top of the new list. I'd recommend that Nemia and/or Joan Marie bump the thread a couple of times a day.
As for me, I've drawn my first two days. I hope to have time to write up and post but I don't even have a tree yet and spent most of today with a dislocated rib. Tangentially, I want to talk about the McRib sandwich, but am going to ice myself instead.
As for me, I've drawn my first two days. I hope to have time to write up and post but I don't even have a tree yet and spent most of today with a dislocated rib. Tangentially, I want to talk about the McRib sandwich, but am going to ice myself instead.
I believe in Crystal Light.
-
Joan Marie
- Forum Designer
- Sage
- Posts: 5306
- Joined: 22 Apr 2018, 21:52
Re: Sacred Days of Yule 2018 - December 20 - 31
It so great to see everyone joining in. What a great thing this is. I am really feeling this season and it's so fun to share it with everyone.
Just in the case anyone needs any tips or assistance with images, I created this post: Posting Images: A little help
Just in the case anyone needs any tips or assistance with images, I created this post: Posting Images: A little help
Button Soup Tarot, Star & Crown Oracle available @: Rabbit's Moon Tarot
-
CharlotteK
- Sage
- Posts: 491
- Joined: 19 May 2018, 15:31
Re: Sacred Days of Yule 2018 - December 20 - 31
I need to catch up with posting. I'll do a bulk update tomorrow.
-
Joan Marie
- Forum Designer
- Sage
- Posts: 5306
- Joined: 22 Apr 2018, 21:52
Re: Sacred Days of Yule 2018 - December 20 - 31
I think it's kind of hard to keep up with this every day during the holidays. I'm going away later this week to spend new Years with friends and I hope to do all my draws before I leave.CharlotteK wrote: ↑23 Dec 2018, 18:23 I need to catch up with posting. I'll do a bulk update tomorrow.
It seems to me though, that this particular exercise isn't so much about the day-to-day as it is a way to bring some thought and closure to the year and to prepare the ground, so to speak, for next year. For me it's about the whole transition.
My personal goal is to complete it before the year end, so I may do a long session on Wednesday or Thursday and get caught up and then finish it up all at once.
Button Soup Tarot, Star & Crown Oracle available @: Rabbit's Moon Tarot
-
CharlotteK
- Sage
- Posts: 491
- Joined: 19 May 2018, 15:31
Re: Sacred Days of Yule 2018 - December 20 - 31
Sounds like a very good idea! It’s been a crazy couple of days and I’ve also had five readings to do by email for friends also (completed three of them...). I managed to get the reading circle readings done a whole week before month end instead of late for a change. I’ll catch up here eventually. I’ve drawn all the cards and it’s a wonderful exerciseJoan Marie wrote: ↑24 Dec 2018, 14:31I think it's kind of hard to keep up with this every day during the holidays....CharlotteK wrote: ↑23 Dec 2018, 18:23 I need to catch up with posting. I'll do a bulk update tomorrow.
... My personal goal is to complete it before the year end, so I may do a long session on Wednesday or Thursday and get caught up and then finish it up all at once.
Re: Sacred Days of Yule 2018 - December 20 - 31
I'm loving this exercise, everyday there's a new message from the cards that fit very well with myself, I'm really glad I joined!
I also have little time to write my readings during the holidays, but I 'm trying do draw the cards daily, because it resonated with me and it is working. But that means I'll have to write the proper readings later, when I have time to sit for a couple of hours in front of my computer. But I'm positive I'll be able to catch up before the weekend.
Merry Christma! I hope everyone is enjoying the holidays!
I also have little time to write my readings during the holidays, but I 'm trying do draw the cards daily, because it resonated with me and it is working. But that means I'll have to write the proper readings later, when I have time to sit for a couple of hours in front of my computer. But I'm positive I'll be able to catch up before the weekend.
Merry Christma! I hope everyone is enjoying the holidays!
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Joan Marie
- Forum Designer
- Sage
- Posts: 5306
- Joined: 22 Apr 2018, 21:52
Re: Sacred Days of Yule 2018 - December 20 - 31
I'm going away tomorrow for a few days so I finished up these 12 days of yule just now. I'm really grateful for having done this. I gained some really important insights and I will refer to them throughout the upcoming year. This is far more meaningful to me than any "new year's resolution" because it goes much deeper into the roots of who I am and how I am growing.
I wish the best to all of you who are doing this exercise and also, to encourage anyone who isn't doing it that it's not too late. Just take some time and draw the 12 cards, in a session or two, and see what happens. It really helps to write it out, one by one. I really can recommend it.
Also, I'm wondering if anyone out there is doing this but has chosen to not post their experience here. If you are, maybe you could mention something here about how this has gone for you.
In any case, I wish everyone a beautiful transition into the season and into the new year.
I wish the best to all of you who are doing this exercise and also, to encourage anyone who isn't doing it that it's not too late. Just take some time and draw the 12 cards, in a session or two, and see what happens. It really helps to write it out, one by one. I really can recommend it.
Also, I'm wondering if anyone out there is doing this but has chosen to not post their experience here. If you are, maybe you could mention something here about how this has gone for you.
In any case, I wish everyone a beautiful transition into the season and into the new year.
Button Soup Tarot, Star & Crown Oracle available @: Rabbit's Moon Tarot
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CharlotteK
- Sage
- Posts: 491
- Joined: 19 May 2018, 15:31
Re: Sacred Days of Yule 2018 - December 20 - 31
I'm also gaining really valuable insights. I'm all caught up to day 6 now. It really is fascinating and at the end I am going to summarise what I've learned and what I will take away from it all ' to do'.