Nemia's Sacred Days of the Autumnal Equinox 2020 - Button Soup Tarot

[Nemia]

Let's enrich our lives by exploring each of these sacred events. Through twelve days, we draw a daily card from a deck chosen with love and care, and focus on the energies of each special day. Doing it as community gives special power to this personal ritual.

Day 1 18.9. Ludi magni games - Roman games in honour of the god Jupiter, celebrated with circus performances. This card reflects the spirit of celebration in your life, and how you can bring more joy and playfulness to yourself and others.

Day 2 19.9. Day of Our Lady of La Salette - an apparition of the Christian Mother of God/Holy Virgin. She brings message of hope to humanity. Where is your personal source of hope and spirituality?

Day 3 20.9. Sedna, Inuit Goddess of the Sea - This card asks you to address your fears and shadows before the winter comes, like the Inuit did in their Sedna festival.

Day 4 21.9. Eleusinia - an ancient Greek holiday, commemorating Demeter and Persephone. She has to leave the world of of growth and abundance and descend to the realm of death. This card reflects grief, sadness and the traces of tears in your life. Acknowledge and honour them.

Day 5 22.9. Meditrinalia - an ancient Greek holiday honoring the goddess of healing. Think about your healing process and how you can continue it. Where do you draw strength from? How can you heal and nurture yourself in the future? Pamper yourself today and close these twelve days of introspection with healing thoughts.

Day 6 23.9. Autumn Solstice - Libra - Mabon - the day of perfect equilibrium. A day for two cards. What is growing in your life, what is decreasing? This two-card reading reflects the balance of your energies and, if there is imbalance, what you need to address.

Day 7 24.9. Brazil holiday of Maiso, mother goddess - what is the role of your mother in your life, how do you mother yourself/father yourself? Reflect on the maternal/paternal archetypes within yourself, and how you can make them work for you, not against you.

Day 8 25.9. Greek holiday Pyanopsia - Thanksgiving for the fruits of the sun. Wind white or purple wool around a laurel or olive branch, and hang or arrange fruit around it. These don't have to be actual fruit - you can write on a paper things that you are grateful for. What is the fruit of your past action, ripening now?

Day 9 26.9. Holiday of Neptune - This is a card about anger and anger management. Contemplate about how you deal with negative feelings. Is there a way to tranform negative energies into positive ones, making your anger pull your carriage and drive you on?

Day 10 27.9. Vendémiaire - month of the grape harvest in the French revolutionary calendar month. Raise your glass to your big and small achievements in the last year, either with wine or grape juice, and enjoy your success.

Day 11 28.9. Maha Navami - a Hindu holiday celebrating goddess Durga's victory over a demon. Part of the celebrations is chanting. Reflect on a victory you want to win over the next three months, and devise a chant for it. Write it down where you can see it and envision the joy you will feel when you reach this goal.

Day 12 29.9. Rosh HaShana - beginning of the Jewish New Year. It's a Jewish custom to send greetings and good wishes to people in your life. Use this day to focus on the people who are important to you, what you can do to strengthen your ties to them, and contact at least one person you have neglected lately.

[Nemia]

And here we go!

Day 1 18.9. Ludi magni games - Roman games in honour of the god Jupiter, celebrated with circus performances. This card reflects the spirit of celebration in your life, and how you can bring more joy and playfulness to yourself and others.

Now look at what I got:

The Two of Pentacles! and in this absolutely wonderful interpretation by Kaylani Perisho - inspired by the Cirque d'Or! If this is not going to be a celebration....

And if I look at my spread map now:

It looks as though the acrobat was playing in a larger hoop - the twelve days of Autumn Equinox.

It take this for a very good and encouraging card (most of my Signposts of the Year readings have started out encouragingly!).

Yesterday, I wrote to a friend: I have the choice now how to procrastinate. Escape from writing by doing housework, or escape from housework by writing.

Thanks to Corona and some unfortunate circumstances, I'm nearly unemployed right now, and there are two things I have to do: bring the house and garden up to snuff again, as Georgette Heyer would have said, and develop my c. five unfinished book projets to completion. Both are necessary. For neither do I get any outward pressure. I have to motivate myself.I think this card is an encouragement. It's not too much to balance, a house that has been neglected a bit since the children moved out (doing something with the empty rooms - that's my challenge) and book projects that have been collecting dust for years. The only person who really cares about them is me. And that should be enough. I can and will balance these two challenges, and I'll DO it. I need a structure for my day, my week. And I have to value what I do enough. If I want to make others care about what I'm doing, I have to care enough myself.

Great card, I'm so happy it's this time of the year again!

[Nemia]

Day 2 19.9. Day of Our Lady of La Salette - an apparition of the Christian Mother of God/Holy Virgin. She brings message of hope to humanity. Where is your personal source of hope and spirituality?

I knew the backlash to the first card was on its way - and here it is!

It's the Ten of Swords - and it's by Emilie Muniz whose Simplicity Tarot I have written about some days ago. What a great card in its ambiguity - is the woman floating above the swords, is she resting on them or do they actually pierce her?

Well, it doesn't really matter because it hurts. Where is my personal source of hope and spirituality? I re-discovered it in the depths of grief, it's true. But I'm no longer in this place, my depression has lifted, I've been feeling consistently better over the last months. But this card reminds me that hope came to me when I felt at the bottom and didn't see much light. NO light actually. Now that the light is shining again and my eyes can catch it, I'm grateful.

[Nemia]

Day 3 20.9. Sedna, Inuit Goddess of the Sea - This card asks you to address your fears and shadows before the winter comes, like the Inuit did in their Sedna festival.

Today, it's the Ace of Pentacles, one of Joan Marie's cards. The picture was made in the city in Germany where my beloved stepfather grew up, it's her own hand. Dear Joan Marie, I really have much to thank you for. I'm in an ongoing process of addressing my fears and shadows, and there are lots of fears lately. It's strange because when I was younger, I was much more optimistic and light-hearted. Over the years, I learned that anything can happen to anyone, we just have to hope for the best and be grateful if the worst doesn't happen.

Since my children moved out and started their own lives, and that's already some years ago, I had to come to terms with a trivial fact I knew before but didn't really believe. For me, having children was always priority nr. 1. I enjoyed every moment of the years we had. I knew they'd leave the nest but I didn't realize that my function as Mama would be shrinking so much. I have quite turned into myself since then and haven't yet re-gained my footing. Losing my job hasn't helped. I feel squeezed from many sides.

Yes, I can't complain, I have good relations with all my children (and the rest of the family), I can find work again, I have a very happy marriage and re-discover lately my joy in writing and art. There is much I can do to improve my situation.

Planting seeds - it's not too late, I'm not too old, I can't continue to discourage myself all the time. There are many seeds I have kept in my pocket for years and didn't plant them. Now, it seems, is the time.

[Nemia]

Day 4 21.9. Eleusinia - an ancient Greek holiday, commemorating Demeter and Persephone. She has to leave the world of of growth and abundance and descend to the realm of death. This card reflects grief, sadness and the traces of tears in your life. Acknowledge and honour them.


Page of Pentacles.

A very expressive card by Pranic Room. Interesting to see this Page turn up - associated with new projects and work-related enthusiasm, on the day of sadness. But I have experienced for quite some time now work-related disappointments and lack of fulfillment. I have to deal with it somehow, and part of it is grief. I have to acknowledge it and let go of some dreams - and hold on to others. I won't let sadness for missed chances dampen my motivation for new projects.

[Nemia]

Day 5 22.9. Meditrinalia - an ancient Greek holiday honoring the goddess of healing. Think about your healing process and how you can continue it. Where do you draw strength from? How can you heal and nurture yourself in the future? Pamper yourself today and close these twelve days of introspection with healing thoughts.


Knight of Wands

Astral Pasta created this wonderful knight and put the emphasis on creativity, vision, creatures of fire..


It's the perfect answer to the Page of Pentacles, the grief for missed opportunities and wasted talents.

How wonderful - when I'm just re-discovering the world of art and creativity again! Wow, so much energy, the fire of fire. And I feel so weak, so fatigued, so depressed again since I lost my job again. It doesn't help that I couldn't have helped it - I need this injection of fire, I really need it.

[Nemia]

Day 6 23.9. Autumn Solstice - Libra - Mabon - the day of perfect equilibrium. A day for two cards. What is growing in your life, what is decreasing? This two-card reading reflects the balance of your energies and, if there is imbalance, what you need to address.

The Four of Pentacles, made by Ailsa Eck. A very short text and it's a card I know (and like) well, and I understand it. Other cards encourage me to start new things, to dare, to stop crying over spilled milk, but this card also tells me: hold on to what you have. Oh, it's a cute card and it has a sense of humour which is great to have in any deck.

I love and honour Venus and Libra, and on that day (yesterday), I moved my tarot calendar to the next sign - Libra, with all its cardinal energy of clarity and honesty.

Isn't it wonderful - Justice, the Moon in Libra, Two of Swords, Chochma in Yetsira - which means "intelligence in creation" and again connects me to the topic of creativity (yetsiratiut).

So within me, there is Nemo, and I like to hold on to what I have. I won't throw away what I have, and I'll defend with claws and teeth whatever is left of my jobs when we get throught his lockdown and crisis.

I also value very much the happiness and stability that I have in my life. My first card this time, 2 of Pentacles, talked about balance, and balance is such an important topic for me, always has been.

Using talents intelligently - creating new without discarding the old - how do I do it? Is it possible to be so old and still so clueless? Nemo, bite me!

[Nemia]

Day 7 24.9. Brazil holiday of Maiso, mother goddess - what is the role of your mother in your life, how do you mother yourself/father yourself? Reflect on the maternal/paternal archetypes within yourself, and how you can make them work for you, not against you.


Today, we have more than half of this reading behind us - what a pity.

How strong and colourful this deck is.I had the Knight of Wands already, as healing element, and now I have the Queen of Wands, and it's the maternal element - my own mother (from a tradition of strong, warm-hearted matriarch), and my own role as a mother.

Again I was interrupted and will have to continue later!

[Nemia]

Day 8 25.9. Greek holiday Pyanopsia - Thanksgiving for the fruits of the sun. Wind white or purple wool around a laurel or olive branch, and hang or arrange fruit around it. These don't have to be actual fruit - you can write on a paper things that you are grateful for. What is the fruit of your past action, ripening now?


King of Swords - Diana

[Nemia]

Day 8 25.9. Greek holiday Pyanopsia - Thanksgiving for the fruits of the sun. Wind white or purple wool around a laurel or olive branch, and hang or arrange fruit around it. These don't have to be actual fruit - you can write on a paper things that you are grateful for. What is the fruit of your past action, ripening now?


King of Swords by Diana


There are actually no fruits of past actions in my life right now, only lack of success and disappointment. I'm grateful for my marriage, I'm grateful for good books, but there are really no fruits to be seen, even from an eagle's perspective. And even if there were fruits, I wouldn't see them now. I'm right now again at the bottom of a very dark hole of self loathing and self disgust. I wish I had the powers of the eagle to see things from above, to see how problems could be solved. I'm sick of myself, I'm sick of making the same idiotic mistakes since I was a girl, and if I could, I'd divorce myself.

This is one of the relatively rare cases where I can't find anything to say to a card except for: I wish I could do it but I can't.


Day 9 26.9. Holiday of Neptune - This is a card about anger and anger management. Contemplate about how you deal with negative feelings. Is there a way to tranform negative energies into positive ones, making your anger pull your carriage and drive you on?


Tower

Isn't it great? Anger management, the great topic in my life. I don't explode often anymore, and I can go on for many months, sometimes years, living under the illusion that I have it all under control. I'm a Taurus, I'm a cow, I swallow and ruminate. People who don't know me well think I'm very patient. I am. I'm patient but I won't let go. I forgive insults but I don't forget. I all builds up within. Whatever I do, it accumulates. And when the dams burst, I have zero control over myself. I'm afraid I could murder someone in such rage. I'm absolutely blind with rage, it's overwhelming. From the inside, it feels like being swept away by a tsunami.

From the outside, it looks ridiculous. A grown woman, usually standing on her precious dignity, losing not her marbles but a whole marble factory all at once. If you see this woman I become when I'm really angry, all you can say is: that's insane, why should I have anything to do with this person? Now I never every get this angry with strangers, of course my deepest rage is kept for the people who can hurt me most deeply. I have ruined a number of very important relationships in my life. the combination of hyper-sensitivity (and I know today that I'm hyper sensitive, it's a sad fact and I wish I was not) and lack of impulse control when angry, rounded off with a total lack of assertivity that makes people think I'm not insulted because I look serene even when I'm angry - it's a desaster. And there is no way back from these events.

When I read for others, I always try to see the good side of the Tower - that you discover or experience something that in retrospect will turn out to be vitally important, an insight you paid for dearly. But in my case, there is no retrospect insight except for shame. It's the one Achilles heel of my character (the other is the inability to do something from start to end - I'm a quitter).

A very depressing card for a very depressing event in a depressing time.




Day 10 27.9. Vendémiaire - month of the grape harvest in the French revolutionary calendar month. Raise your glass to your big and small achievements in the last year, either with wine or grape juice, and enjoy your success.


Moon

[Joan Marie]

The Four of Pentacles, made by Ailsa Eck. A very short text

I have to admit, I have a real soft-spot for this card. There is just something about it. The look on the dog's face, the background that looks like a kitchen floor from the 70s. The way he's using his whole body to hold those discs down. I know Alisa wrote very few words for the guide, but this image seems to communicate very well on its own somehow.

These don't have to be actual fruit - you can write on a paper things that you are grateful for. What is the fruit of your past action, ripening now?

When I was doing the workbook thingy with Spirit Keeper's Tarot, there was an exercise once a week where I had to write for 15 minutes the things I was grateful for. I thought it was silly. Turns out it wasn't. It really helped me a lot in unexpected ways.

[Nemia]

Thank you, I'll try it. 15 minutes! That's a lot. I feel like crawling under the sofa never to come up again.

[Nemia]

I find it very difficult to finish my reading this time. The cards are up, I know I have to take pictures, upload them and deal with them. But I don't want to let it go.

I did daily readings for a long time but it was never as intense as these readings. I hope that when the sun is up, I'll be able to tackle it. This time, the cards really pushed my buttons. Well, it's the Button Soup....

... where Tower and Moon meet.




Day 10 27.9. Vendémiaire - month of the grape harvest in the French revolutionary calendar month. Raise your glass to your big and small achievements in the last year, either with wine or grape juice, and enjoy your success.


The Moon by Astral Pasta

I raise my glass to my dreams, to my illusions, to my emotions and the unknown lands of my mind that have sunk beyond retrieval. I raise my glass to the cycles of my life and the way I have to carve success from lack of success. Things will never be esay for me and have never been. But like the Moon is different every night and every hour of every night, I take the slow changes, even if they're circular and lead me nowhere. It's time to accept that I'm not a forward-goer but a circle-walker.



Day 11 28.9. Maha Navami - a Hindu holiday celebrating goddess Durga's victory over a demon. Part of the celebrations is chanting. Reflect on a victory you want to win over the next three months, and devise a chant for it. Write it down where you can see it and envision the joy you will feel when you reach this goal.


7 of Pentacles

by Stronglove

Before I drew the card, I knew what I want. I have a whole lot of unfinished book projects, some of them very nearly ripe for publication. Some of them have been collecting dust for many, many years. What I want to do in the next months, when I know I'll be in lockdown and won't find a new job, is clear - finish whatever I can finish.

And now this card. Perseverance, dedication, it's exactly what I need.



Day 12 29.9. Rosh HaShana - beginning of the Jewish New Year. It's a Jewish custom to send greetings and good wishes to people in your life. Use this day to focus on the people who are important to you, what you can do to strengthen your ties to them, and contact at least one person you have neglected lately.


King of Pentacles

by Fabalah Ellis

I had lots of pentacles, didn't I? And now the highest energy of the Earth. I know that this time, it's me. The person I've lost contact with, again!, after so many good efforts, that's my very own self. I have let frustration and helplessness get the better off me and have let myself slip back into sadness and passivity. I need to stop seeing myself as helpless and do what I have always wanted to - write. That's what I can do now, I have nearly no other options, and nobody knows, if anyone would ever buy a book written by me... but

It's a difficult time for a difficult reading. The Tower of my anger and eternal feelings of rejection - the Moon of dreams and untouched potential - and then the two pentacles cards encouraging me to draw on strengths I know that I have.

Wow, that was a tough reading. The Button Soup Tarot is a tough deck to read. It bundles the energies of many wise, insightful and creative persons. I didn't expect the forces that work within this deck. Benevolent forces, wonderful forces - but working together even stronger.

I didn't know that about collaborative decks. Until now, all I had thought about such collaborations was whether they're cohesive. But in readings, you get something totally else - it's a chorus singing, and that's unexpectedly great.

It was not easy for me to work with the Button Soup because I could and should have been part of it but then simply couldn't do it. i was so blocked, I bought new art materials and just sat there, nothing came, nothing worked.

When it was clear that I missed the deadline for the Button Soup, I saw that the We Are One was about to be produced, over there are Tarot, Tea & Me, a forum with a very friendly energy. And I did it, I really made two cards for this deck. I made collaged images, torn paper, coins, so glass beads - cautious but hey, I did it.

the next step was making three cards for the Star & Crown Oracle, and this time, I made the collages from pictures I had drawn and painted myself.

All this personal saga was in the background, and in a way, it encourages me. I can do it, even if I take much more time than normal human beings.

[Joan Marie]

I did daily readings for a long time but it was never as intense as these readings. I hope that when the sun is up, I'll be able to tackle it. This time, the cards really pushed my buttons. Well, it's the Button Soup....

Oh my. I never thought of that!

[Nemia]

I'll leave the cards on the old fridge door in my study for some time - I can't take them off and I have time until December when Winter Solstice is calling us... I love these readings, and this time was even better than ever. What a reading.