Tag: Tarot De St. Croix
Tarot Blog Hop: Finding Balance
Welcome to the Mabon Blog Hop. I’m super excited to be participating in this hop because Autumn is my absolute favorite time of year. Our wranglers,Jenn Waltner and Louise Underhill, have challenged us to post on the theme of balance and how it can be restored. I’ve decided to use a spread I created to ask the elements for guidance on how I can bring more balance into my life. I’ll be using the Tarot de St. Croix for my spread as this deck always makes me think of Fall.
North: Message from the Bones
The seven of swords, as interpreted by Lisa de St. Croix, tells me that I need to clear space in my life for what is important and I need to focus on my goals. These are important messages as I am getting ready to embark on a serious effort to lose weight and I need to really focus on this goal and to make time in my life to exercise and pay attention to what I eat. The more traditional meaning of the swords, stealing or retrieving something, is also valid in this reading as I’m taking back my health. This card also dovetails with an emotional journey that I’ve been taking to heal from ancestral damage. I grew up believing that my weight was a function of genetics and that there was nothing I could do about it. However, when I look back at my mother’s eating habits, I realize that she was trying to lose weight while eating cookies, soda, and other unhealthy foods. In hindsight, the messages about not being able to lose weight because of genetics, do not match up with the eating habits she demonstrated.
East: Message from the Mind
The fool tells me that I need to let go of my need to know my destination and to just trust that I will be taken where I need to go and provided with what I need. This is a very apt reading for me as I am a control freak and it is hard for me to embark on journeys with uncertain outcomes. It’s very interesting that I pulled this card as the message from the mind, because I’m applying for a graduate program in Spirituality, Culture, and Health and the rational part of my brain that I have always relied upon to make decisions is telling me that there is no return on investment in this program and that I will be wasting my money. However, my heart is telling me it is right for me and that it will lead me someplace amazing. This card is an affirmation that I need to just leap and trust that the path will unfold.
South: Messages from the Spirit
My initial read of the hermit was that the cards were telling me that I would never have anyone in my life and that I would always be alone. However, as I have taken time to reflect, I’ve realized that that is the interpretation of my all or nothing mindset. The more gentle message from the cards is that I am a person who needs a lot of alone time and that I need to learn to balance my need for solitude with a relationship. I need to make sure to make time for myself no matter what the circumstances. It is a reminder to myself to not get so caught up in someone else that I lose myself. Messages from the Emotions
East: Messages from the Emotions
The World is telling me to embrace all of my emotions and to not segregate them based on what I believe are good or bad emotions. All of my emotions can help me to grow and to become my best self. The world is also telling me that by opening my heart to embrace my own emotions, I can be connected to the all of my brothers and sisters in spirit around the world. This message is incredibly timely for me as I am someone who shields herself and doesn’t like to open up to the world around me. I need to be like the world and stand naked in the middle of my own world and own it. I need to own who I am and what I feel.
Message from the Source
The four of wands has many messages for me. The first is that I will find my own personal power by creating a life of ritual. I need to live in sacred space as that is where I find my own sanity and healing. This card, like the World card, is also telling me to be naked and vulnerable as I move through life. I need to be open with other people and to stop hiding who I am. Lastly, Epona is telling me that I am at a crossroads and I have a decision to make as to where I am going moving forward.
Summary
Overall, these were incredibly powerful cards to draw and provided a lot of guidance as to how to move forward with my life over the next few months.
Ritual to Honor My Father
My father died the day after Thanksgiving in 2008. I’d known it was coming as he had lung cancer that had metastasized through his body. I was living 200 miles away and traveling even farther away for work every single week. I made the trek to visit him as often as I could, but it never felt like enough. I knew the end was coming when I visited him and he was a shell of the robust, loving man who had raised me. This was also the start of a devastating period of changes in which I could only react and had no time to mourn.
The call that he was gone was devastating, but not shocking as I knew the call would be coming sooner rather than later. However, there was no time for my own sadness as I had to drive the 200 miles through teary eyes to help my mother deal with her grief as she’d lost her mother less than a week before. I had to become the supportive daughter and not allow myself to be the grieving child.
I was strong for my mother, I was strong for my children, and I was strong for my now ex-husband. I was the one who provided the shoulder to cry on, who prevented my mother from buying a junky used car the day after my daddy died, and I was the one who gave the eulogy at my father’s funeral. I was also the one in the year after my daddy’s death that counseled my mother, loaned her the money to bury my father, and was there for everyone else. I never let myself mourn because there was no time.
Fast forward a little over a year and I got another call that rocked my world, my husband had had a massive coranary and I needed to be at the hospital immediately. Once again, I was the one who dealt with the details. shored everyone up and never let anyone see my tears. I sat by his side, cheered him up, bathed him, and did whatever else needed to be done.
My payment for the days spent by his side was his pronouncement four months after his heart attack was that he wanted a divorce. I was hurt, I was angry, I fell apart, but all too soon I had to pull myself together and be strong for my kids. I had to figure out how to keep them in college, get them settled in off campus housing, and deal with all the other realities of life.
It was ten years before I finally felt strong enough to mourn my father. I cried for my loss, I cried for my children’s loss and I started to remember the good as well as the bad. My family has always done ritual on Halloween and remembered our beloved dead, but I was ready to go deeper and to truly grieve and comfort the lost little girl inside. Around that time, I came across Lisa de St. Croix’s Ancestor Workshop and it resonated with me.
I took some time to gather mementos and photos of my father, I meditated on his life and our relationship, and I found the cards that represented both him and me according to Lisa’s advice and I found cards I wanted to use to meditate on. It was a little weird because my dad’s card was the lovers and that felt really uncomfortable. I finally pulled the lovers from the Animal Totem Tarot and I used the Hermit from the Druid Craft Tarot for my birth card.
As I reflected on the cards, the assignment was to write a message to my dad from the Hermit’s perspective and to me from my dad from the Lover’s perspective.
The Message from Me From My Dad
You are too much of a hermit and you withdraw too much. You need to let people in. People will disappoint you, but they will also bring you great joy. Love is a choice! Choose to open your heart and let people in. You deserve Love! Choose it.
My response as the Hermit
The world is too painful of a place to open my heart. I’m much more comfortable in my own company. Choosing love is scary. However, I know I’ve already chosen love with my kids. Loving Cam and Sean brings pure joy along with the heartache and I remember that, I remember love is worth it.
Interestingly enough, since I did this ritual, I have been seeing and finding turtles everywhere. Turtle was my dad’s nickname and when I find those turtles, I’m reminded that he is looking out for me and that love never truly dies.
Cairn by Cairn 