Author: Raine Shakti

Raine Shakti believes in living her life cairn by cairn and in helping others learn to do the same. Her day job is in the training and communications field and her best professional experiences are when she is able to empower people. She has spent the last few years reclaiming her life and her inner warrior. Part of this journey was becoming an ordained priestess with the Fellowship of Isis. Her Matron deities are Nephthys who has helped her become a true virgin woman, the Morrigan who has taught her what it means to be sovereign, and Yemaya who has taught her the strength in having a loving heart.

Ten of Earth

Ten of Earth
Dark Goddess Tarot

First Impressions: My first impressions of Ala are that she is stiff and statue like and is not interacting with her people. She also is very much a goddess of fertility with the prominent breasts and the design painted on her stomach.

Book: Kin and Kind, living and dead are all part of one another, totality of the earth in all its variety and appearances, Goddess of morality and judgement, keeper of customs and laws.

Guidance: Let relationships go as needed, do not seek vengeance, celebrate good fortune, celebrate those whose work you admire, keep and renew your relationship with the earth

Journaling:

This reading hits where I’m at today about the need to let go of people without vengeance. It is about shedding the ties that no longer should be binding us. My tie to John is a big one as he hurt me badly. I had an interesting dream last night. I dreamed we were sleeping together and he made an amorous advance. Initially, I responded to him, but then my dream rewound and I asked him if he loved me or if I was just convenient. When he didn’t respond, I knew everything I needed to know. This helped me to realize that our issues were not all about me and that he really does see women as objects.

January 20, 2018

As I read this, I’m realizing that my relationship with the earth also needs to include my relationship with my body. This was an incredibly hard week and I lost my connection to both the earth and myself. I spent most of my week in my head dealing with issues and lost track of the world around me. I didn’t make time to go to the ocean or to ground myself and I’m paying the price. This week may be just as insane, but I need to make time to ground and take care of myself.

Three of Air

Three of Air
Dark Goddess Tarot

First Impressions: The Blue Dakini is stomping on someone’s heart as she dances. The lotus flower appears to have blood flowing from it. This is truly a card of heartbreak.

Book: If it is not real and true, sever all ties, heralding a vast awakening, healing through destruction, quickly cutting through obstacles.

Guidance: Face the harsh truth, put something in place of your wound, open yourself to the experience

Journaling:

I really love this reading and this card. It is a reminder to let go of what no longer serves me and to open up to the possibilities of life. I’m at a crossroads and I know that in order to move forward, I need to make some hard choices. One of those choices is to choose to let go of my hope that something is going to happen with X and I need to put him in my rear view mirror. I need to do like I am doing with so much of my life and keep the good and the lessons that I’ve learned and let go of that which no longer serves me. Being diabetic also no longer serves me and I need to get with the program and quit the sugar.

January 13, 2018

The three of swords is still not my favorite card in the deck, but I am learning to appreciate it and to see the value in admitting heartbreak and accepting it versus hiding it. I’m also seeing the value in having the pain drain out.

Moon

Moon
Dark Goddess Tarot

First Impressions: Initially, I really did not like this card because it looked like a worm on a wheel, however, the more I studied the more I came to appreciate the artwork and to see the card for what it is.

Book: In the realm of the soul, the moon is your guide, shape shifting, embracing duality, virgin onto herself, wheel of time, souls finding mercy

Guidance: Reenactment of an old story is at hand, look for a reinterpretation, change comes over time, attune yourself to your rhythms, set your imagination free, get more sleep

Journaling:

What an amazing card today to pull today on the last day of the year and when there is going to be a super moon tomorrow. I love the thought of doing the soul’s work. I can feel the change afoot in the new year and know that there are amazing things on the horizon. I can feel the magick in the air.

January 11, 2018

Wow! This card was incredibly prophetic. The reenactment of an old story is at hand and I am working hard to respond a different way. Work is a little weird right now as we just went through a reorganization and I have a new boss, which makes me feel a little uncomfortable. I also heard that for some joint project we reached out to Jessica about OCM, which also makes me wonder what is going on. However, there is nothing I can do about any of that.

My initial reaction is to run. It’s to say, this isn’t going to work out it is time for me to walk away, but they are telling me very clearly to stay and that it will work out. It goes against all of my instincts, but I am choose to stay and see how it plays out.

The other interesting tidbit of guidance is the reminder to get enough sleep. I’ve learned this week that when I have enough sleep, I am much more effective at dealing with stressors and weird situations. When I don’t get enough sleep, I struggle.

Seven of Fire

Seven of Fire
Dark Goddess Tarot

First Impressions: I love this card because it makes me think of being a bad ass and taking charge. The colors and background are so simple, but very profound.

Book: Rise up or the demon’s win, Gods invoke Durga through their combined powers, tiger representing her unlimited powers, working to protect people from misery

Guidance: Know which weapon to use for the fight, know you ground and your position and make a stand, identify your personal demons, do not give up something because it is hard. It will be accomplished if you keep trying

Journaling

I really love the messages in this card, especially around knowing your demons. My personal demons are low self esteem and feeling as if I always have to buy people’s friendship. I get caught up in thinking that if I do nice things for people then they will like e and I’ve always been that way. I remember back in high school buying gifts so guys would like e. And I did the same thing with John. I thought if I bought him things he would stay. I’ve learned that if people don’t like me for who I am, than that is their loss, but people pleasing is still part of who I am.

My other demon is sugar and it is killing me, but I don’t know how to stop.

Messages from my Guides

Yes, you do! Decide to stop. Find a substitute and be done with it. Yes the first few days will be hard, but it is either do this or do drugs and feel the medical industry. You are tough and strong. You can do this.

January 9, 2018

Today was about kicking ass and taking names. I am fed up with bullshit excuses for not doing your job. I’m fed up with people not fucking reading emails and expecting things to be spoon fed. I very clearly said in my email that it was for standard training material. I was a bitch today and it kind of felt good. I’m tired of being nice as it feels like everyone walks all over me when I’m nice.

However, when I take a step back and look at things from a different perspective, I realize that everyone is

Four of Fire

Four of Fire
Dark Goddess Tarot

First Impressions: My initial impressions of this card were not positive as it seemed to be someone pulling the strings. However, as I did the reading, I realize that the intent is to show her influencing her children. Overall this is a card of contentment as it shows our ancestors looking out for us.

Book: Family, ancestors, and gods meet at the hearth; heart is a portal; ancestors live in the home fire; judge of domestic affairs

Guidance: Scry using fire to receive messages from gods or ancestors, clean and smudge your house, acknowledge the gift of life you’ve received from your ancestors, do not pollute your future through poor behavior in the future

Journaling

There are so many messages in this card. I love the message of honoring the gift of the ancestors even if you can’t honor them. The ancestors did give me gifts that I cherish. I am strong and independent because of my Grandmother Babcock. When I work to connect with her, I find someone who was trapped by the circumstances she grew up with. she was poor and had few opportunities. I also knew that she was mentally ill and did not get the help she truly needed. It’s difficult to function when you have an untreated mental illness.

I also know how easy it is to become angry and mean when your emotional needs aren’t being met. In some ways, John deciding to leave was a gift because I was becoming incredibly angry and bitter. I felt as if I just gave and gave and gave and that I got nothing in return.. I still don’t feel as if I get a lot of emotional support from others, but I also don’t feel as if my emotional energy is being completely drained.

January 8, 2018

As I meditation on this card, the words that keep coming to mind are compassion, death, and perspective. I need to learn to have compassion for myself and for others. I’m being guided especially to have compassion for my mother. I am still upset by the fact that I perceive her as choosing not to change, but what if she really can’t choose to change? Would I be judging her so harshly if she wasn’t able to walk as fast as I can because she was handicapped? I also have to remember that I’ve struggled to change even though I knew that changing was in my best interest. I’m sure that there are people who think I was stubborn or was choosing not to change.

It’s funny, as I was talking to someone from work today who exhibits a lot of the behavior that I used to exhibit: being stubborn, taking everything personally, etc. I was able to just listen to him without judging or taking any of it personally. Maybe that’s what I need to do with my mother. Maybe I just need to realize that even though it feels personal, it isn’t personal. Maybe she truly is incapable of changing.

I also need to have compassion for myself and accept that her behavior hurts me and that I did the most compassionate thing that I could when I walked away.

Two of Fire

Two of Fire
Dark Goddess Tarot

First Impressions: I love this card because it is so more more engaged than the typical two of wands where the man is looking passively out at the ocean. Hekate is truly engaged and actively looking at the path.

Book: You don’t need a path to find your way, she releases her powers in the three realms, walking the spirit walk between the worlds, seize the moment

Guidance: When you hear a dog, think about the path you are on; when at a crossroads, move toward what you know to be true; take the first step, and it will lead you toward what you know to be true

Journaling:

I love this reading, especially about taking the next meaningful and appropriator action and then you will be provided with the next. This reminds me of the cairns and the lesson that they taught me.

As I reflect, I realize that the lesson is really one of trust. Walking to the first cairn, I had to trust that the next one would be there. I suppose it is that way with the reset of my life as well, I have to trust that the next cairn will be there. That’s really really hard for me as I want the whole path laid out for me at once, but that’s not how the world works.

I don’t know what the next adventure that awaits me is, but all I need to know is what the next step is, so what is the net step? Have I missed it by being stubborn?

Message from my guides

No my child, you haven’t missed it. You are right where you need to be. Continue putting one foot in front of the other. Continue to meditate and feel the peace all the way down to your belly. Trust your heart, trust in love, trust in yourself

January 8, 2018

Even though every instinct in my body says it is time to move on from my job and it is time to leap, they are telling me very clearly to stay put. I’ve always been the one who got dissatisfied and leaped rather than stay and work through the feelings of discomfort. They are telling me that there are lessons to be learned in trust and perseverance. They’re telling me to sit with the discomfort instead of running from it. I can find all sorts of ways to justify running, but they are telling me that none of them are valid. The funny thing is that I stayed in my marriage way too long even though I knew it was time to leave but I would leave jobs at the drop of a hat.

The funny thing is that I have been better about not leaving jobs since John and I split up, but the instincts are often still there just like they are now. I’m going to choose to trust them.

Six of Fire

Six of Fire
Dark Goddess Tarot

First Impressions: Epona seems to be the exalted one sitting side saddle on her horse above the other horses. She also strikes me as lonely without any other humans for company.

Book: Succeed on the strength of your alliances, the great mare is the source of fertility of the land, Epona provides for her people in death and life, Epona is also night mare who appears in dreams

Guidance: Hang a horse shoe to bring blessings, make progress day by day on a task until it is done, let people help you, Know what prosperity means to you, enjoy your moment in the sun.

Journaling:

I really like the reminder on this card to know when enough is enough. Sometimes, I get so caught up in having it all that I forget to be content with the simple things in life. We are snowed in today and part of me wants to rush to have the driveway plowed, but there is another part of me that is content to just sit and watch the snow fall. There is absolutely no where that we need to be today. I can take some time and smudge the house and do some cleansing, but there is nothing that truly needs to be done today.

It makes me wonder how often I rush to do things just because instead of sitting and enjoying what is. It is actually hard sitting here and watching the snow fall instead of rushing about. The one thing that I should do is to go out and shove the walk for the mail man if he hasn’t come yet.

I have been gifted with so much in life. I have a beautiful home, I live in a safe neighborhood, I have food to eat, I have people in my life who love me. It is amazing how when you really take time to count your blessings all the old shit doesn’t seem as important. I’m not quite at the point where I can wish my mother and John happy and wonderful lives, but I can wish that they find peace and find healing.

I’m realizing that having peace within ourselves is the most important thing in the world as when we have peace within ourselves we are not frantically searching for someone or something. I wonder if every person on earth had peace within their soul if we would have peace on earth. Is peace something we can teach? Can we teach kids to find that place within themselves when they actually like and accept themselves or is that too much to ask?

January 3, 2018

It is amazing how actually taking the time to reflect on what I’ve written can improve my mood. I’ve been in a crappy mood all day for some unknown reason. I think it may be that our client is choosing to reduce hours and I’m a little freaked out about it. My fears about not having a job and being laid off are rising up and overwhelming me today. However, that is just Frankie Fear talking as in reality, nothing has changed since before the holidays. I knew that the client wanted to reduce the hours, but seeing my hours on the project go to 5 a week is a little scary. I know there are a couple of other things in the works, but right now I’m freaked.

Dearest Ones,

Please help me to say F* you to Frankie Fear. Help me to realize that I will always be taken care of and that I am being guided. Please help me to remember that I have always been taken care of and that my needs have always been met.

Blessings, Raine

Wow! It is absolutely amazing how fast our guides work when we are open to guidance. As I was writing this, I got a Facebook alert and there was a sponsored post for an article called “Nightmare Medicine: How to Transform Fears into Power and Clarity.” Although the article specifically dealt with entering your nightmares (maybe chasing away Frankie Fear?) and confronting our fears, there were pointers and tips that I could use to vanquish my waking fears as well.

And if that wasn’t enough to convince me that I am being taken care of, I logged into IHG to book my son a hotel as I get the member discounts and after I’d booked his hotel, I found I was eligible to get 25,000 points, which equates to one free night in a hotel, just for clicking a button. I’ve been on the fence about going to the North Star Tarot Conference and the 25K points has pushed me toward taking a leap of faith and signing up.

Siren of Earth

Siren of Earth
Dark Goddess Tarot

First Impressions: I don’t like this card at first glance because it looks as if her face is on her ass. However, when I look more closely, I realize her face is on her stomach as it is about the bawdy and wonderful things that Baubo does. My initial thoughts on this were thinking with other parts of our body than our heads.

Book: This is the life in the belly: raw, ridiculous, sublime; Goddess of the belly laugh, power of laughter to activate the power of creativity. This is the time for feminine renewal and sexuality

Guidance: Laugh and smile deliberately, explore your body, explore physicality, be outlandish

Journaling:

I love the reminder to be bawdy and explore my uncivilized self. I’m not sure how I feel about being in the company of women as that’s always been disappointing for me. I’ve never been comfortable with women. I feel relations with women are stilted and as if they don’t get me. I’ve always been much more comfortable with men. Of course, today it is much too cold to be bawdy about anything! The wood room is freezing and I don’t know if I’ll ever be warm!

January 2, 2018

It’s interesting as I reflect on this as to why this card makes me really uncomfortable and it goes back to a lot of interactions with other women. Oddly, in these interactions I was the prude:

When I was a preteen or a young teenager we were at my Grandmother Babcock’s house making butter and she said something about not getting pregnant by holding a pill between my legs. At the time, I had no clue what she was talking about, but it made me uncomfortable.
My mother was talking to a friend while I was in the backseat of the car when I was 10 or so and she said something about my dad reaching for her breast and grabbing a roll of fat instead. That made me incredibly uncomfortable.
When John and I were first dating, we went to Joan and George’s and Vicky and Joyce were talking about my breasts and how they had kept growing. That was so awkward and made me uncomfortable, but when I protested I was told I was too sensitive.

In my mind all three of these interactions were really inappropriate and made me feel uncomfortable. I have no problem making impersonal bawdy comments, but two of these were directed at me and the third was by my mother…ick. John also made me uncomfortable because he’d have really inappropriate conversations with the kids and when I asked him to stop, he refused and told me I was too sensitive.

What I’m realizing this as I read this is that I’m not really a prude and I don’t necessarily think other women are prudes, but I want agency over bawdy conversations and I want my feelings to be listened to and to not be told I’m too sensitive or that I need to lighten up.

Wow! Pretty incredible what the cards tell us when we pay attention and listen.

Tarot and Swedish Death Cleansing

Swedish Death Cleansing has been in the news a lot lately and it has piqued my interest because of childhood memories of cleaning out houses and apartments after elderly relatives have died. It is really not fun to go through someone else’s stuff that they cherished and decide who gets it, whether it is worthy of being donated, or whether it should go in the dumpster. It’s not fair to leave boxes and boxes of stuff for someone else to clean out so I’ve decided to work on cleaning out my own stuff. Deciding to pare down on books has been easy, the kitchenware and Christmas stuff will be split up when my kids move out so I’m not worried about that, but what to do with my tarot journals has been a challenge especially when I realized that I’d be generating at least 12 sketch pads and 4 larger journals each year. That’s a lot of paper.

Around the time I was contemplating Swedish Death Cleansing, I came across some stories online about the worst/saddest/most disturbing thing people had learned about family members and invariably some of these horrible things were learned when I people read someone’s journal after they had died. I made the decision then and there that I did not want my kids reading my raw and unadulterated journals after I died, not because I had big secrets to hide, but because I didn’t want them to read something nasty I’d written about them and be devastated. Don’t get me wrong, I love my kids dearly, but like everyone else on the planet, they sometimes do really annoying things ad sometimes I write about it.

Deciding I didn’t want my kids to read my raw journals after I died and actually doing something about it were two different things because I have no idea when I’m going to die and I can’t exactly control what people do after I’m gone. I also don’t want to stop journaling for fear of possibly offending someone.

I had originally decided against posting my daily draws on Tarot of Change because they were personal guidance given to me and weren’t really for public consumption. However, I decided to go back to the original definition of what a Blog was: a Web Log. Blogs were originally online journals or diaries where people shared their thoughts. However, the more I thought of it I realized that maybe there was a way to have the best of both worlds: I could continue journaling offline, but transcribe my journals online on a regular basis. This would allow me to clean up and remove anything hurtful, but would still let me keep the essence of my journal intact.

The other decision I made was that even though I’m posting a sanitized version of my daily draws online, they are still mine and are written to record my journey. If someone else happens to stumble across my blog and learn from it, that’s awesome, but that’s not the intent. As I said in an earlier post, I’m not a role model and I’m done trying to be one. I’m willing to help people and guide them, but I’m living my life for me and me alone.

The Sun

Sun
Dark Goddess Tarot

First Impressions: Sekhemet always strikes me as so regal in this card, she is clearly a woman of power who knows how to wield it. Her solar sundress makes me think of all the blood she has lapped up. Overall, the sun is a card of promise and warmth.

Book: Power Burns, Power Heals, raw power of the sun, divine vengeance, cleansing fire cures, She ensures the flame of one’s life does not burn out too soon

Guidance: Opportunity to break a negative cycle, walking both the spiritual and mundane paths, following a calling

Journaling

Pretty amazing that I pulled this card right after I was doing a sun meditation to heal my pancreas. Even though I know the sun is still up there, she feels faraway today. It is a cold day and the cold wind is howling. My wood room is drafty and I feel the cold breeze blowing. Days like today it feels as if the sun is never going to come out and warm us. I can truly see how the ancients believed the sun had forsaken them.

They are truly telling me to charge a citrine and put it in water from last year’s snow. I’m supposed t ask that Sekhemet bless the water and I’m supposed to meditate and listen to binaural beats. They are telling me that will bring my sugar levels down. At this point, I’m willing to try anything.

January 1, 2018

Okay, I haven’t done this yet as I haven’t dug through my rocks to find a citrine. I will do it this week and report back on the results. Interesting thing is that even though I haven’t done it yet, I am feeling better and I have made a definitive decision to stop the sugar and I’ve started to find alternatives.