24: Trailblazing… forging ahead

Yesterday was a fabulous day! I made real headway with the deck and am looking forward to another working day of creative inspiration.

So, today is about forging ahead. When I think of that phrase, I think about the hard work that is done in a forge. It requires strength, fortitude, heat, pressure, pounding, forming and loads of vision. Can you imagine bringing to life something so beautiful from a semi-formless piece of hot metal? It takes honed craftwork and loads of skill to be a master of this.

What tools are used? A hammer, anvil, pincers, air, heat, gloves, apron, visor, etc. What strikes me here (no pun intended), is that while all this fabulous work is being done, the craftsman is very well protected from injury. What this says to me is that, while crafting in the esoteric or spiritual forge, I must take care to guard myself from injury. It’s easy to forget that spiritual work can cause injury as well as crafting beautiful outcomes.

While forging ahead today, I will guard against injury – physical, spiritual, emotional, mental. Are you keeping yourself from harm?

Today, I have drawn Lust – XI. I am using the Thoth Tarot illustrated by Lady Frieda Harris.

This is a very striking card! Look at her all laid back and naked, riding such a magnificent beast! This is such a beautiful card and there is so much to it!

Let’s take a closer look. The woman and the beast are the most prevalent elements of this card but there is a lot more to see!

Let’s start with the images at the top of the card. The image in the centre is the womb, the Holy Grail. Within it is the energy of the sun and moon, distilled and co-mingled. On the horizon of it are 10 rays representing the Sephiroth of the Tree of Life and indicating the dawn of new life. The arrangement of 10 horns represents creative force.

The Beast has seven heads. Many will associate this with the beast in the book of Revelations. Many will associate this with the seven deadly sins. In the Thoth, the seven heads are: an angel, a saint, a poet, an adulterous woman, a man of valor, a satyr and a lion-serpent. These are all aspects of Crowley himself… naughty boy. But take heart, these seven heads can be aspects about those who inquire as well. These seven heads also represent the 7 chakras which are activated by the energy of the union between the Beast and the lady.

The woman is representing Babylon, the scarlet woman of the Bible. She is laid back in ecstasy and is looking at the lion-serpent (phallus) tail of the Beast. The lion-serpent tail represents Kundalini energy and has a nimbus of 13 rays, the Hebrew number indicating unity and love. The Beast is gazing at the Holy Grail.

The woman is demonstrating willful dominance of the Beast. By tradition, women have the power to arouse, harness and direct the animal nature.

The Beast is trodding on the saints who were denied sexual and magical power due to their vows of chastity and purity.

This card is all about power and energy being harnessed. This could suggest sexual power and energy but not love.

This is an appropriate card for my activities today. I will be harnessing power and energy to forge a creative endeavour. This card suggests I will be successful if I can willfully dominate and direct my energies.

How will you control the power and energy in your day to successful accomplish your tasks? Can you activate your chakras to enable your success? How will lust consume you today?

Until tomorrow… Love, light and blessings!

 

 

11: Pathfinding… curing for strength

There are times when things must rest. In cooking, you must allow things to rest for tastes to flourish! In crafting, you must allow things to rest so they can cure and be strengthened. In public speaking, you must let things rest to give more silent power to pauses. In teaching, you must allow things to rest so students can process what they have just been taught.

Resting is an important part of what we do to allow our bodies to process, to cure and to power up for the next phase. I am resting. I am resting my thoughts so they can easily make sense of and present to me a more full and glorious picture of atmosphere, scene, interaction, colour, and spirit. I am resting my eyes, my arms and fingers so when I begin the next phase of writing, I will be able to sustain the exercise long enough to make good headway.

Do you find the need to rest? While I don’t like to rest because I am impatient and want to just get on with things, I honour my physical person and the need my body has to re-energise, rejuvenate and regenerate. Take time to rest and allow your body the breathing space to create!

Today, I have the Princess of Wands leaping out of my deck! I am using the Thoth Tarot illustrated by Lady Frieda Harris.

What a girl! All the yellows, golds, oranges and reds in this picture are fantastic! Does she have the tiger by the tail or does the tiger have her? Is she bringing the sacrifice to the altar or is she the sacrifice? She holds a scepter with the Sun blazing away at its end! The flames surround her but do they consume her? Does she control the flames or do they entice and control her? She is audacious, thrilling and completely self-assured! She does not appear here to be the least bit modest or uncertain. She is courage and enthusiasm, beauty and power!

This card is such a brilliant card to draw on any day! Today, this card speaks to me in the way that it assures me that there is courage and brilliance to my planned rest period. When I rest, I problem solve. I see complete stories in my introspection. I meditate and find answers to queries about interactions, possibilities and uncertain alliances. I can be free to create, to amend and to renew in my rest. This is a brilliant way to allow inspired spirit to speak!

So, today I will rest. What will your day bring? Until tomorrow… Love, light and blessings!

10: Pathfinding… next steps

I have finished fleshing out nearly 100 characters for the book I am writing and it is now time for the next steps. How do I determine the interactions between these characters? Are there common threads that would pull these individuals together? Geography? Occupation? Occasion? Genealogy? Circumstance?

There are times in our lives when we are thrust into situations where we inevitably connect with someone. This can be through celebration or tragedy, a purpose, an interest, a person or just as a matter of serendipitous consequence. How do you interact with others in your life? Is your connection due to something in particular or just out of serendipitous consequence? Is your connection through someone else? How has your story evolved over time and how have the people in your story evolved over time? What brings people together?

To write a book about relationships is not an undertaking for the fainthearted. To be credible, it must be done with great care and consideration. So, to write a book that brings nearly 100 people together is a daunting task. I have my characters, each have their own lives, their own families, their own quirks and these characters have to mesh with the others in a realistic and plausible manner. Perhaps the card I have drawn today is quite fitting.

Today, I have drawn the Hermit IX. I am using the Thoth Tarot illustrated by Lady Frieda Harris.

This is quite the card! It is full of hidden details. The hermit himself is depicted as an ancient ibis (look at his head). The only other body part on the card is his hand which is holding a lamp that, at its centre, houses the Sun. He is surrounded by heavy-headed wheat ripe to harvest and these heavy-heads shafts suggest sperm. You can see the orphic egg wrapped by the serpent and you can also see the sperm (a Homunculus) with the fetus appearing in its head coiled up in a fetal position. The three-headed dog Cerberus also makes an appearance here and he is associated with Mercury/Hermes who tamed him to rescue Persephone from Hades. Cerberus guarded the gates of Hades.

The Hermit is about practical planning, searching within and reconnecting to Source. He is a solitary and withdrawn figure who ponders life’s mysteries and searches for inner understanding of deeper truths. This is a time to be introspective and think about how to proceed, to plan next steps and be truly considered in thought and decision. It is about looking for inspired spirit and seeing clearly how to proceed. It is about looking forward to what is on the horizon, much as the Hermit is looking at the orphic egg. I take heart as this card suggests that the savage beast of confusion has been tamed and, though still on my heels, I choose to stay clear and level-headed as I progress.

With that my good friends, I bid you a productive and clear day. Until tomorrow… Love, light and blessings!

7: Pathfinding… answering the call

I find I am very restless today as my book is ‘calling’ to me to begin the task of putting into words what I have learned thus far and to expose places that need more information and research. So, today I will do a ‘brain dump’ and flesh out the beginnings of the book I ‘need’ to write to exorcise it from my very being. This is the same ‘calling’ I get every time I do a creative work. Inspired by a dream, the seeds are planted and I am driven to pull all the elements together and allow my hands to ‘channel’ what comes to the atmosphere of my mind through my inspired spirit. Amazement follows as I look upon the final piece of wondrous art that has me absolutely perplexed as to how it arrived. The ingredients, the colours, the textures, the fine detail, the abstract look, the ‘secret’ that is buried but remains obvious to see, if one really looks – all come together in a graceful fluidity of spirit, mind and hand that is a true miracle to behold. How inspired works are created… What is your calling and how do you create?

Today, I did not draw a card. Three cards fell out during shuffling and turned themselves face-up to be seen. I will use these three cards for my draw today. Today, I have drawn the 6 of Cups – Pleasure, the Lovers VI and the Queen of Wands – Reversed. I am using the Thoth Tarot illustrated by Lady Frieda Harris. What do these 3 cards tell me about my day?

	I think I want to stop with this card. The 6 of Cups is the card of beginnings/commencement of pleasure, of well-being, harmony, ease and satisfaction. It corresponds to balance and this is the card that helps us see balance in our emotions as we move from a tumultuous 4&5 of Cups forward. We get a grand respite that allows us pleasure. However, this is a commencement card, a beginnings card and reminds us that we can’t rest of our laurels just yet.So, I choose to see this card as a messenger of a pleasant day as I begin my work on my book. It reminds me that today will be a day of ease, harmony and well-being if I allow it.
	What a another wonderful card to draw for today! It demonstrates the Lovers but the card is not really about the Lovers but the child of their union. It is about the orphic egg, the essence of all life. This is a fabulous card for creative process.I choose to see this card demonstrating to me that not only am I doing what I love to do, the child I am bringing to life is beginning to take shape and come together.
	Whereas the upright version of the Queen of Wands demonstrates a woman who is enterprising, good willed, nurturing, a good businesswoman, economical, virtuous and the all-round ‘super woman’ we aspire to today, the reverse isn’t the opposite but is more extreme. The reverse is about extravagance, manipulation, inflexibility, difficult, and feverish in endeavours.I choose to see this card as a reminder that, though my day is full of pleasurable growth and development of my book, it is also possible to become focused on one thing only and thus impede my progress. It is a reminder that I should stay open and consider my goal for today in a more knit 1, perl 2 sort of way so I accomplish something in a balanced fashion.

Overall, today is about enjoying the process of beginning the book. It is about being cognisant of becoming too focused on any one thing and taking pleasure from keeping everything balanced and in good order. Perhaps this is a way of saying, just write what you know and then go back and identify gaps for further research. It isn’t imperative to try to ‘research’ today. There is always tomorrow.

I hope your day will be as pleasurable and balanced as my day is appearing to be. Until tomorrow… Love, light and blessings!

5: Pathfinding…

I received a book in the post a couple of days ago. Tarosophy: Tarot to Engage Life, Not Escape It, (Tarosophy) written by Marcus Katz, gives the reader an understanding of Tarot that is comprehensive, easy to read and progressive. It is divided into three parts: beginner, intermediate and advanced. While I scanned the book on the first day, I am now going through it bit-by-bit. I am in the beginner section of the book and while it is written is an easy manner, at least one of the exercises could be expanded upon as the fullness of the exercise is elusive. Exercise 4 would benefit from a more comprehensive undertaking, if not an example of use. While this is my personal opinion, this is where I got stuck, momentarily. I anticipate going back to this exercise over time to see if it makes any more sense than it did as oftentimes, given time and openness of curiosity, things do. If anyone who has done this exercise reads this post and can explain that exercise a little better, please do. I would be grateful for your understanding. I will touch base with Marcus and see if he would be kind enough to help broaden my understanding of this exercise. I have yet to cover the rest of the book and will, over time, share my view of it here. It is good to have this as a ‘textbook’ of sorts to use as I go forward with my study of Tarot.

Given that I have started using this tome for study purposes, today, I have drawn the Ace of Swords. This is from the Thoth Tarot deck illustrated by Lady Frieda Harris.

Tarosophy suggests that we look at the minor pip cards based on a few criteria.

First, the stage of the journey. In this instance, the stage is 1, the Ace. Tarosophy suggests that this is the ‘Beginning, creation, spark, seed.’

Secondly, the aspects: This is the Ace of Swords which indicates it is about the intellect (air, airy-fairy or high-minded).

Third, putting it together: Using the first and second steps, this suggests that this card is telling me that there is a beginning or creation, spark or seed of an idea or knowledge (education). So perhaps this card is indicative of the fact that I am starting to educate myself on Tarot and this is a positive indication for this enterprise as it is upright and not reversed.

How easy is that? It seems easy enough but, for my individual taste, I like to take in the details of the card as well. It is part of the fun.

What do I notice about this card? It is a beautifully attractive card as it is blues and yellows and green. The sword is remarkable as are the 22 rays of light that emanate from the crown at the tip of the sword. 22 rays are the Major Arcana. The sword itself is representational of the Tree of Life as the pommel is Daath (omnipresence), the guard is Chesed (kindness/love) and Geburah (strength) and the point is in Malkuth (kingdom). The guard is comprised of the waxing and waning moon back-to-back with two spheres between them. There is writing on the blade which is the Greek for ‘Will’ (Thelema) written in Arabic. The Ace of Swords is the beginning of intellect and represents the Ruach – inspired spirit – the mind is the enemy due to its need for rational thought.

So, now looking at the detail to this card, perhaps I can enhance what I learned from Tarosophy and think of this card as starting or beginning of education through inspired spirit – more the airy-fairy rather than the rational thought that usually accompanies learning.

Hmmmmnnnnn… what will tomorrow bring? Until then, Love, light and blessings!