Using The Magician's Tools When The Arse End Goes Out of 'er.

Well I couldn't have drawn a better card than the Magician today. I have spent the past three days without my internet or my phone due to unknowingly disconnecting a cable from my router and then I unknowingly connected it incorrectly. I finally figured this out with persistence, and the expertise of a good computer technician I called a few times from a good neighbour's phone..

 Being sick with a rotten cold and flu bug, along with some car problems, all added to my frustration. It takes patience to ride the wave of chaos and confusion, and it can do a number on your self-esteem, your self-confidence, and your overall health, if you let it. We all experience days like this and can feel like we have some dark raining cloud hanging over our head with a universe conspiring against us. We have to make a choice to turn our good days into bad somehow. There is always something good to be found in the bad days, and they can go from bad to good, which makes the good days even better, with the wisdom of patience and gratitude.

Letting go, taking care of yourself  and just riding the wave until calm seas prevail, is the only thing to do, if you have given everything else a try, and then, wait. If not, it's real easy to make things more complicated and difficult for ourselves, in trying to force a solution.

I have to say I have a love hate relationship with technology, and though I certainly wouldn't call myself a geek, nor a Luddite, but I think I'm somewhere in between. Maybe a Geuddite. I enjoy all the benefits of technology but have real negative feelings around how dependent I am upon it, when things go wonky or as they say in Newfoundland, the arse is gone out of 'er. The nature of being human is that we often take for granted what we have, until it's gone.

The Magician reminds me that I do have tools at my own disposal to take care of my mind, body, and soul if I only utilize them on a daily basis, and when I need them. If I do this my self-esteem and self-confidence and my gratitude is much more likely to remain intact.

Time for a hot cup of some honey, lemon, ginger and vinegar.

The Lovers - Choice & Consequence

 This Major Arcana card, The Lovers is mostly about choice. A personal choice that we make for ourselves. I have some choices to make and frankly it's tempting to just ignore these, and do nothing, but that is a choice as well, and the consequences will soon follow I know. As it's been said in many ways, "Choose the behaviour, choose the consequences."

 Many choices we make are difficult, and some even easy, including all the seemingly little inconsequential decisions we make from day to day. These choices involve material, emotional, and intellectual decisions, and they mirror back to us the kind of person we wish to be.

 When we strive to do the right thing with discernment, regardless of how difficult it may be, we then have the opportunity to become stronger happy individuals with integrity, who have the courage of our convictions, and to be all that we are meant to be. 

 Here we are dealing with our own free will and instinct. This card can often signify a choice in love, career or creative activity. We are urged to look carefully at the implications of our choices, instead of jumping into something blindly without careful consideration.

Four of Swords - The Antidote to Self-Doubt - The Authentic Turn-On

Tomorrow I have an ultra sound. I've been stressing about it, along with the impending Winter, which of course is such a useless waste of my energy. I get frustrated and impatient with myself when I worry, and start spinning my wheels.
So after some reflective reading I've come to a more peaceful place in my mind, and am feeling better in knowing I can trust myself to be strong and overcome my self-doubt.

Something I received this morning was these wise words of Regena Thomashauer ( Mama Gena ). I don't know where she finds this wisdom, but I am grateful she does because her words, are timely and much appreciated. The email was about the antidote to self-doubt, and this morning I drew the Four of Swords, that indicates the following. characteristic behaviours.

• Inner reflection
• Balance
• Clarity of thought
• Wholeness
• Contemplation
• Letting go
• Introspection
• Inner vision

Here is what Regena Thomashauer means by having an authentic turn-on, and it is the antidote to self-doubt.

"But the experience of authentic turn-on goes much, much deeper:

• You feel a sense of your own aliveness and your life force
• You know that your spirit and your body are one
• Your native enthusiasm is intact
• Your ability to reach for pleasure is on—especially when it seems hard
• You’re in your right mind and your highest power
• You’re you—full, complete and whole

Once planted in her authentic turn-on, a woman begins to grow. Kind of like the way you just trust a tree to grow.

A turned on woman learns she can deeply trust herself. She pays attention to her desires, and treats them as her road map.

Indecision vaporizes.
 
She can truly feel her deep yes and her deep no.
She relaxes into the unknown, rather than forcing or muscling her way through life.
She knows she can handle obstacles, and understands that each one forces her to expand in new ways.
She experiences the divine in everything, especially herself.

Within you, within me and within each woman is the source of our own power. 
 
She is our antidote to shame, and the wellspring of our deepest intuition.
She is our divinity, our spiritual center, the timeless point of our attraction, and our power source.
She teaches us that our joy is serious business.
She is anchored to our truth.
She teaches us our unshakable confidence."



The divinity and our spiritual center Regena Thomashauer speaks of, is The Empress, the Great Earth Mother.

Four of Pentacles - Order Out of Chaos

 "When the student is ready the teacher will appear." This is a statement attributed to a number of sources. It's a wise one regardless of who said it, and it has born out to be true in my life.

 Sometimes the teacher resides within ourselves. We learn from our mistakes, we let go of the people, places and things we have been holding tight to our chest, be it material possessions, our looks, our health, home or relationships etc.

We see in this card the apprentice and the teacher. The teacher is holding tight his pentacles seemingly threatened that his position might will be usurped in some way. He doesn't want to let go of what he has worked hard for to get.

Most of us aren't really welcoming of change and we get comfortable with a certain status quo or situation. When we see others making progress and positive changes, this can cause us to compare ourselves to others or it can motivate us to take an inventory of our own lives. This action can be an opportunity to grow and move forward. It's our choice. Change is inevitable. We either move forward or backward, never staying still..

And so taking a personal inventory of ourselves can be a teacher and if we can accept ourselves as we are, as human beings with grace, humour and humility we learn to be our own best friends, and finding serenity in the storm, and making order out of chaos. Art and creativity help me to do just that.

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Strength - Flying Without Wings

 Sometimes when we are feeling the most weak, it's when we are the most strong, although it may certainly not feel like this is our reality.

 I love cats of all shapes and sizes, but most of all I am what some might call a horse nut. They deeply touch my soul. I love them for so many reasons. They symbolize to me freedom, inner strength, and beauty.

When I was a thirteen year old teenager, I was good friends with a girl who took riding lessons. I lived vicariously through her experiences with horses. She once told me something I never forgot, but at the time did not completely understand the significant depth of it's meaning to me. I was able to apply what she'd said to me later in life.

 She said when jumping fences her coach told her to concentrate on the fence directly in front of her, and to jump one fence at a time. I adapted this to living, taking on one day, and even one moment at a time. This for me is where strength is.

If I project into looking at the fences and hurdles ahead, I will be overwhelmed, worried and even paralyzed with fear. If I regret the stumbles I have made in the past were the posts came down, or I failed to even try to get over the hurdles, I'll feel guilt and maybe shame, because I failed and made mistakes.

When you come face to face with a horse, or any creature that is much bigger than you, you can often feel an overwhelming fear about the expanse of their huge strong bodies. You  also come face to face with your fears, and attune to your visceral reactions and response. You realize they could hurt you, or even kill you.

 Horses, although no longer so much a wild animal like a lion, they cause you to become self-aware, and teach you to have an inherent respect for a highly intelligent, sentient creature.

When I turned 40, I had the privilege of being able to work around horses, riding daily, and living on a horse farm for a period of two years. It was hard disciplined work, but I persevered, and I overcame so many struggles and  fears. I learned so much about horses, about myself, and learned to fly without wings.

" The horse had carried the girl into danger, as it may carry many of us, but her triumph conquered her fears and gave her courage for the new challenges that lay ahead. ".

                                                               - Mary Midkiff, She Flies Without Wings 

Feugo- Robert Painter's Barb - Oil on Canvas, Catherine Meyers

 

The Moon - The Beauty of Imperfection

I always think of the Moon as being beautifully perfect. I suppose because it speaks so strongly to that part of myself that has my Moon in Pisces in my astrological chart which creates a polarity of opposites and contradictions. This is the way I see life. It is a contradiction of polar opposites and fortunately or unfortunately we can't have one without the other, it's just the way it is.

There are so many other reasons that the Moon is such a significant card, representing the sea of the unconscious, being the card of Hecate, that is sometimes interchangeable with the moon-goddess Artemis. Hecate is underworld moon goddess. The confusion, fluctuation and uncertainty of Hecate, is certainly more about imperfection, and the only thing I can do, is to hold on to faith and hope, in the transformation that comes through personal development and growth, which is reflected in the inevitable changing faces of life.

Hecate is vague and elusive, which can cause great anxiety and bewilderment. Along with faith and hope I also need the wisdom of patience in life, which allows for the a gestation period, before I can grasp a clarity and knowledge on the 'royal road' of dreams which is the only road to Hecate's world, where I learn about the beauty of imperfection.

On this road, I learn how to honour the imperfect, to be who I am, and to accept life on life's terms. That is beauty, as sometimes described in the Japanese aesthetic of Wabi Sabi, as being "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete." There is spirituality to be found in imperfection.

Six of Pentacles - The Sparrows Don't Worry They Sing

This is the perfect card for me to have drawn today, as it reminds me to be grateful for all that I have, and to focus on the blessings and mercies that have been so freely given to me. The more of a gratitude list I have, the more harmony and happiness I can draw into my heart, and into my life, even when things get rough. It is especially during these lean times, I am reminded to have courage, faith and trust  to know that if the little sparrows don't worry about what they are going to wear or eat, and they are loved and cared for, surely I can do the same, as the sparrows don't worry, they sing, and I'd much rather sing than worry.

Sparrows Don't Worry They Sing