Nine of Cups - Finding the Fruits of Your Labour

I don't usually have any question when I spread out my deck to pull a daily card. But this more I asked a specific question, and it was really a wish, or a desire or a prayer and very happily I then drew the Nine of Cups, commonly known as The Wish Card!

I've be actively involved for sometime now in figuring out my purpose and mission in relation to my business. In other words the Why, What, How and Who of my creative enterprise. This last week I've really dug in and clarified each part and am making some significant head way at connecting the dots that reinforce, affirm and enable my purpose and mission.

As I have said in my past posts, I'm not a person who believes in luck. I think we can bring about or own luck in that we make things happen with passion, inspiration, commitment and work. Sounds simple enough, but it's not.

 It's a nice fantasy to think about having a magic wand,  a special potion of maybe a fairy god mother to grant us our wishes. But that's not reality and in the long run, it would ask nothing of us in terms of personal growth.

Finding the fruits of my labour involves a lot of repetition and effort. I go over and over the steps, practicing, which is how we learn a skill. There is also a commitment involved to learning, even the things I'd rather avoid learning for one reason or another. However I've found the kind of learning I avoid the most is where I will find the most important lessons that I need to learn. Instead of looking at these as a hurdle, I need to see it as a challenge, that will get me out of my comfort zone, resulting in my personal growth.

Page of Wands - Enthusiasm and Discovery

The Page of Wands is an encouraging card, full of fiery creative spirit and life, imagination, and energy all flow from a place of inspiration and to move forward with enthusiasm and discovery. It is also represents the irritable, unrealistic and restless youth, Phrixus.

This personality needs to be tempered, because the temptation could be to dive in without forethought, and there is a risk of messing the whole thing up, however risk can be a very positive thing that enables growth.

This youth often provokes others and causes problems in one's personal life and work. Here in lies the warning message, look before you leap, and think before you act.

The wisdom of age needs to comes into play. The youthful spirit may not allow for the foresight in his approach to risk, and so careful consideration is required.

As the old saying goes, pride comes before a fall and the childishness that revolves around the ego of immaturity can be the default regardless of one's biological age.

This card makes me think about a saying my mother would always say. "Youth is wasted on the young."
The positive aspect exhibited by Page of Wands points to the power of the imagination and knowing that there is much more where the initial creative idea came from.

Nine of Pentacles - Brag-Gratitude-Desire - Sisterhood

Known as the "Wish Card", the Nine of Pentacles is an example of how life is full of synchronicity.
Reflecting on the meaning of this card I am thinking about this past weekend, at the special ocean view retreat, where I reunited once again with my beautiful, spirited, talented and loving 'soul sisters.'


I told some of the women I would be posting about our wonderful weekend on my blog, and amazingly I noticed today I had drawn the Nine of Pentacles in July 2014 after we had our women's weekend last year, and so it made sense that I once again drew the same card today.

Our celebratory women's weekend was perfect timing, the full Blue Moon, the long weekend, a couple of Birthdays to celebrate, a beautiful concert at a winery, where we listened live Latin music, delicious food, 'free range swimming' and glorious weather. We couldn't have wished or desired for anything better.

It was hard to leave our special retreat by the sea, but each woman took with them that deep bond of sisterhood, we have long celebrated for over 29 plus years now.

This "Wish Card" I see as a desire card. It's about thriving, self-value, wisdom, knowledge, talent and the gift of being a woman. It is what Regena Thomashauer (Mama Gena) talks about.

" A desire is the interface between you and that which is greater than you. "

Three practices the foster and nurture this desire are:

1. Brag
2. Gratitude
3. Desire

• Brag is not to be boastful, but truing up to what is and acknowledging what you created.
• Gratitude is being grateful and this is what brings happiness.
• Desire is what gives connection to the Divine, the goddess within and it is what grounds us to the inspirational qualities that we possess as women.

Here is my brag. I brag that I have created an independent life for myself, and pursued my artistic goals.

I am so grateful for the family, and my soul sisters that have endlessly supported me, and continue to help me be the person I am.

My desire is to continue to live a deeply creative life, and that we have another 29 years  of our women's weekends!.

What is your brag, gratitude and desire?

Queen of Cups - Emotion Vs Reason

I was once told I was like a ball of emotion. This isn't true. I am simply no longer afraid of my emotion, but I wasn't always this way. Today I am very grateful to be able express my emotion, because there was a time when I completely shut down my feelings for many years, and learned to do this at the age of five, due to my family circumstances.

 I also learned how unhealthy it is to suppress emotion as it eventually leads to repression, resulting in an inability to know you even have these feelings. It is if a steel door has been slammed shut where nothing gets out and nothing gets in.
Alcoholism is described as being a disease of the emotion. Being sober 20 years, I can attest to this.

The reason I love the Queen of Cups, is that she reminds me emotion is a good thing, balanced with reason. And like the Queen of Cups who relies on her intuition before her intellect. I believe this is a good way to live life. At some point we have to let go of reason, and make a leap of faith. We need to have faith in ourselves, in others, and a faith in the God of our understanding.

 I can't say feeling emotion is painless, because that would be far from the truth, unless I am crying tears of joy. More often than not, we experience emotion from painful things, like the death of a loved one. No one wants to feel pain. Our immediate response, and I will only speak for myself is fight or flight. In the past, I would want to take, what I thought, was the easier soft way, and run away. Thank goodness now, I strive to have courage in the face of fear. Having courage does not mean I am not afraid.

What if I don't believe in God, and what if I find it hard to have faith you ask? I remember it being said, that if you don't believe or have faith then borrow someone else' faith. That made a lot of sense to me, because others can give you if not a complete faith of your own, well it can at least give you courage to go on. Those who have been through worse things than ourselves, can inspire us to believe that if they can make it through, perhaps we can too.

People who have been through hard times in life, are often more compassionate, and can cry with those who weep. Like the Queen of Cups, they drink deeply from the cup of life, and are emotionally generous. They can impart this to others, so we in turn can pass it on, and give it away to others.
It is in giving that we receive.

This emotional generousity is compassion, and can make our world a better, kinder place, that will bring tears of joy, and the tears that heal.

How To Take Control of Your Red Shoes - The Devil

I don't believe I've ever drawn the Devil card in my daily draw. This card represents the passionate side of the individual, from which we can experience growth if we recognize and accept this aspect of ourselves. Pan also plays the truth on his pipe, and the scene takes place in the depths of the unseen unconscious. The dancing figures represent the fears we have in facing the truth, and how we can often lie to ourselves.

What we think we want, is often not what will truly bring happiness, and we become addicted to what is outside of ourselves, trying to fill that hole in the soul,  instead of finding happiness, and fulfillment from within.

This card reminds me of Hans Christian Andersen's story, about the Red Shoes.
The young girl becomes completely enamored and then obsessed by her red shoes which causes her to continually dance, and this leads to dreadful torment, and suffering.

The Red Shoes - Catherine Meyers

Ace of Cups - Why Emotion Beats No Emotion

   ' My cup runneth over ', from the Hebrew Bible is what comes to mind when I see the Ace of Cups appear. It is also a card that can symbolize the individual who is almost possessed by frenzied passion, and visceral emotion, an experience where the heart overrules the head. We can be swept away in a sea of emotion that is a force of nature, causing humans to display behaviour they wouldn't usually exhibit, such as jealousy, spite, and deceit etc. These are the more negative aspects of the Ace of Cups.

Here we see Aphrodite, the goddess who initiates the powerful upsurge of raw energy toward relationship, and the love between Psyche and Eros.

I was once described as being ' a ball of emotion ', and ' a bleeding heart '. I don't agree with these derogatory descriptions. I actually learned how to stuff my emotion from the age of 6 years of age. I remember exactly the day this happened. I was in the Toronto Sick Children's Hospital with my parents, and my brother Ralph who was in the hospital bed, because he was unable to walk. He been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis at this time.

Understandably I was very emotionally distraught, and when I began to express my emotion, I was told by my mother, not to cry. The statement that resonated was, " don't cry you'll make yourself sick ". I saw no tears from my parents, nor from my brother who was then, 16 years old. I got the message loud and clear as I'm sure my brother did as well, that it was not acceptable to express my emotion, and so I followed suite from there on in.

This emotional shut down continued all though my life, until I began to get serious about my recovery from alcoholism, which is often described as being a ' disease of the emotion. ' Alcoholism was all through my family on both sides, and my family had been greatly affected by the disease. Looking back, I can say I went into survival mode, and I kind of disappeared as the family's focus was completely on my brother and his illness.

Today, I understand how suppressing emotions eventually in time, become repressed, in that we are unaware we even have these emotions, and it becomes very unhealthy. If we do not deal with our emotions, they will deal with us.

 It is much better thing to be able to feel, than to not feel. The disconnection from our emotion makes us less human and we are unable to experience love, or life in a holistic way and directly affects our relationships with ourselves and with others.

Having a high intelligence quotient is valued in our society, but it is my experience that having emotional intelligence is just as valuable, if not more so. If we can manage to temper and balance our emotion with our intellect, then the Ace of Cups in our lives will serve us better, leading to a healthier, happier life, where we can thrive, instead of simply trying to survive.

Knight of Wands -

I want to apologize to my readers, as I had posted the wrong card October 16th, 2014. I'd meant to post the Knight of Swords, not this card! I'll blame it on my rather impulsive, restless Knight of Wands aspect of my personality! I was wondering why it felt off, and I was puzzled, drawing this card again.
 As Alf the furry cat and pizza eatin' alien once said, "I kill me!"

The Knight of Wands is an explorer, and an adventurer. Restless, impulsive and full of ideas yes, but he lacks the innate nobility, strength, leadership, and larger than life personality the King of Wands possesses. This guy needs to be taken with a grain of salt, as he can be very alluring, exciting, and charming, however not the most reliable. He's always on an never ending quest, and might be a little bit of an adrenalin junkie, or addicted to being in a hyper-vigilant state. He is neither a follower nor a leader, not being the most responsible type, and he'd rather be unfettered to do his own thing, as he is easily bored, and does not want to have answer to anyone.

On the positive side, the Knight of Wands is extremely passionate, creative, imaginative and intuitive in nature, ready to take on the world.

King of Wands - Ah Ha! Oh Oh!

I know who this is. I wasn't expecting this card, but then the cards don't lie. But there it is looking me in the face this morning.
 The leader, he can shape the world's events. He's Mr. Creative, the adventurer and the charmer, with the infectious personality. When I think about this as being the ideal man, I think about my late big brother Ralph and my loving late husband Bill. I also think about a gentleman of leisure, the late great Jessie Winchester.

I heard this beautiful anonymously written Arabic poem yesterday that I so love, and here it is. Only bit I don't care for is the "slave" word. Maybe servant-leader would be a better word? Because to me if you are a slave to love you are not free.

“ You are free
You are free before the noon day sun.
You are free before the moon,
and you are free before the stars.
And you are free when there is no sun
And when there is no moon,
and when there isn’t a single star in the sky.
But you are a slave,
You are a slave to the one you love,
Because you love him
And you are a slave to the one you love because he loves you back. "― unknown Arabic poet

The King of Wands  full of passion, seizes the day and is ready to take on the world. The King is a self-starter, who has the strength to back up his own ideas and is full of creative energy. He's honest, a dependable man of action, generous and kindhearted. He's just pretty irresistible.
Ok, I admit it, I give in, I love this man! I'm done!