Patience??

Daily Draw: Da Vinci Enigma Tarot ~ Strength

Dimmi: What tendencies need taming here?

You know how in films the person in danger always runs up? And gets trapped? We can nod sagely and smile at each other, and know better mentally and emotionally...but I'm running up even though with all my strength I'm trying to turn myself around. Patience is advised but jumping onto a running lion's back and shooting off in all directions seems preferable to this.

"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions." ~ Rainer Maria Rilke 1875-1926

The Da Vinci Enigma Tarot with art drawn from Leonardo Da Vinci's multitude of sketchbooks, 144 page softcover companion book by Caitlin Matthews. Published by St. Martins Press 2005. Suits are Earth Water Air Fire. Cards are titled and the book includes a Dimmi or a 'tell me' query for each one. Four types of suggestions are given for interpreting, Soul-code, upright, reversed, disconnected.

What We Know, What We Do

Daily Draw: Trilateral Tarot ~ Hierophant

Drawn with the top pointing left this card asks us to address the conscious choices we make each day. In many decks this figure is still referred to as Pope, and presented as a religious leader offering guidance or passing down the laws of thought and behavior.

I'm reminded by this card, setting all  religions aside, there are still basic individual moral precepts we each have that are built into our daily behavior. I've been mad enough to kill but stealing wouldn't cross my mind. I've lusted in my heart but barely have a nodding acquaintance with envy. Those doors are always there, this card asks us to be fully aware behavior is always a choice.

"There is no moral precept that does not have something inconvenient about it." ~ Denis Diderot 1713-1784

Going Forward Unmired

Daily Draw: Trilateral Tarot ~ World

Drawn with the tip pointing left, we are asked to examine our unconscious mind to see and release the millstones and fantasies we've been stubbornly clinging to which keep us from achieving forward movement.

I'm reminded by this card the fear of success keeps many of us mired in the failure of 'not doing'  or worse, re-doing the things that have never worked before, or that ego-ridden bugaboo perfectionism, carried like some kind of proud talisman. Our limited time here is so much more valuable than that.

"Confronting your fears and allowing yourself the right to be human can, paradoxically, make you a far happier and more productive person." ~ Dr. David Burns, The Feeling Good Handbook

Zero Shades Of Gray

Daily Draw: Trilateral Tarot ~ Devil

Drawn with the top pointing right, so this applies to day to day real life as opposed to mental and spiritual convolutions or how our ego might allow us to miss-see ourselves.

I'm painfully reminded by this card I'm pretty much a black and white person in how I live my own life. It isn't a position I'd recommend.

"My philosophy, like color television, is all there in black and white." ~ Monty Python 1969-1974

Personal Responsibility

Daily Draw: Trilaterial Tarot ~ Chariot

Drawn with the top pointing right, The vardo represents the body, today, and asks who or what is running the show. An outside influence? The goats have no reins. A pretendy lala land in the pink clouds? Blame or credit to planet placement?

I'm reminded by this card my body is my responsibility, first, last, foremost. It doesn't get any simpler than that.

"Unless today is well lived, tomorrow is not important." ~ Alan Sakowitz Miles Away...Worlds Apart

Reader's Digest Condensed Version

Daily Draw: Trilateral Tarot ~ High Priestess

Another upright, today asking our meta-conscious to reflect on how our reality and external life compares to our inner thoughts and feelings.

Reader's Digest Condensed Version
External: /\/\/\/\ Up/down good/bad
Internal: -------- Still flat and gray
One thing about it, life is not static, next week, next month, next year it will be a different mixture.

"It is with words as with sunbeams; the more they are condensed the deeper they burn." ~ Robert Southey 1774-1843

Guinea Pig

Daily Draw: Trilateral Tarot ~ Temperance

This card drew upright, asking me to trust the meta-conscious of my own brain to find my way back from the abyss and forward to something, anything, better.

I'm reminded by this card it can be potentially scary to place our faith in self. Against my doctor's explicit advice two days ago I quit taking a med that has had 100% efficacy because I think the high dose of NSAID it contains blocks the ability of one that is more important to me to be working.  Who better to be the guinea pig?

"Everybody's a mad scientist, and life is their lab. We're all trying to experiment to find a way to live, to solve problems, to fend off madness and chaos." ~ David Cronenber 1943-

Recognizing Life's Simple Gifts

Daily Draw: Trilateral Tarot ~ Star

In the upright position connected to spirit, this card asks us to consider all the things we are grateful for. I could go on for ages; keeping a gratitude journal for three years changed how I view everything in my life, from the tiniest things to the enormous.

I'm reminded by this card of hot coffee in a chicken mug from a friend, the beautiful and heartfelt sympathy cards lined up around my desk. My grandmother's small lamp, circa 1930 from her farm in Illinois and the new curly bulbs providing light. The digital camera which allows me to share images of this deck, of computers and internet access which make it possible to connect with the artist across the world. For eyesight and fingers to type, for the clear mammogram this week, for the three little doggies behind me...there is no end, and for all I am grateful my spirit and mind can both recognize and accept these gifts.

"Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness." ~ James Thurber 1894-1961

A newly published deck this week, The Trilateral Tarot created by Dr. Mara Thorson of Germany. Designed to be read as the cards are drawn out of the shuffled deck; top pointed left addresses the unconscious mind, top pointed right speaks of the conscious mind, and pointed up the image relates to the meta-conscious deep spirit.

A limited edition majors only deck with original art created from cloth, quilt/collage style, 25" per side. The glossy cards are 5.5" per side, are shipped in a handmade bag and include both a little white book and downloadable pdf of 65 pages.

Like A Comet

Daily Draw: Wisdom of the Four Winds ~ Excitement

Comet. Born of the ancients. Fiery in appearance yet composed of ice and mud with a circuitous orbit around the sun. 

Gnarly, dude. 

"The comet is mostly empty, mostly porous. Probably all the way in there is no bulk ice. The ice is all in the form of tiny grains." ~ Michael A'Hearn 1940-

Sunrise

Daily Draw: Wisdom of the Four Winds ~ Renewal

I'm an early bird. It is not long after 3 AM and here I am beginning my day. Insomnia plays it's dark part but even when I have my foot on it's neck I'm up early. A fresh start to a new day filled with potential great and small.

I'm reminded there has been a pattern to this week's draws showing a path to healing. I've read the books, I know there are stages of grief. I know billions of people have lost trillions of people, I'm not the only one. I've lost lots of people, family and friends, dear and close and loved. But I cry and cry and watch for the dawn. As does my tiny rooster Peanut. 6" tall, 4" wide and all attitude. His ladies are all four times his height and width and he tends them with such care and devotion...a daily bright spot with the sunrise...

"I thought about calling you at 5:30 in the morning Easter Sunday when the rooster started crowing for three straight hours, I figured if I had to be up, you should be up too." ~ Ken Burke

What A Relief

Daily Draw: Wisdom of the Four Winds ~ Insight

Owl speaks of silently observing and then riding the winds of change.  I speak of change and growth here quite a bit; it isn't just lip service. In hindsight I can see  much personal change, all of which lead to new insight into some area of my life, then leading to an altering of actions and worldview. 

I'm reminded by this card of giving up my idea of personal totems this year, the owl being one held especially close to my heart. My experience with owl was electrifying...but a totem? One more deliberate lightening of the mental load freeing me for the epiphany which followed a few weeks later allowing a millstone of fear held a lifetime to fall away.

"Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world." ~ John Milton 1608-1674

Evolving

Daily Draw: Wisdom of the Four Winds ~ Healing

Greenstone begins as a soft crystalline rock which eventually finds itself trapped between fault lines deep in the earth and from the pressure exerted upon it over time becomes Jade, one of the hardest stones.

I didn't know that. We kind of assume everything in nature arrived fully formed and finished but much of it is a work in progress, just like us. I wear a jade ring which I find myself rubbing when I'm worried or anxious. Then I worry I'm ruining my ring. More likely the thumb will take the form of the stone for we are all shaped by what we do aren't we? It is all evolution via a day to day pace isn't it?

"Most species do their own evolving, making it up as they go along. There is nothing like millions of years of really frustrating trial and error to give a species moral fiber and, in some cases, backbone." ~ Terry Pratchett 1948-2001

Live Your Epitaph

Daily Draw: Wisdom of the Four Winds ~ Freedom

Air. Oxygen and water; without them we do not exist. Sounds simple, but air is made up of seventeen different gasses, all necessary and life is never simple underneath, is it?

This card asks us to define what we need and want. To stop farting around with I want to be rich, I want to be a baseball star, I want to be thin yadayadayada. And so much of our lifetime is taken up with work it is easy for our first thoughts to turn to what we want to do. I'm past the stage of start over, do overs in that department. I need to define and then act based on what remains of life, not old news. Otherwise my tombstone will say "She thought a lot". What kind of epitaph is that for a person with hopes and dreams? One for the person who never got off the dime, never stood behind her convictions, never actually lived.

"To know how to free oneself is nothing; the arduous thing is to know what to do with one's freedom." ~ Andre Gide 1869-1951

Echoes Of Life

Daily Draw: Wisdom of the Four Winds ~ Sun

As Fire Keeper of the East this shows the dawning of a late autumn/early winter day. Autumn is my favorite season, the colors, the scents, the sense of time to cozy in and turn thoughts inward.

I'm reminded by this card it also requires us to take a leap of faith and know life never abandons the land. Both nature and man leave much in our wake, changes and memories that echo through time, there if we but look and listen.

"What we do in life echos through eternity." ~ Maximus Decimus Meridius The Gladiator

Face The Wall

Daily Draw: Wisdom of the Four Winds ~ Sanctuary

I don't want to go. I don't want to go. I don't want to go.

But I will. The Outie me will shake hands and thank strangers and relatives for coming. The Innie me will curl in a ball, face to the wall, and be oblivious to it in the small darkened sanctuary of my mind.

"Family itself, that safest, most traditional of choices, is not a sanctuary. It is, perpetually, a dangerous place." ~ Margaret Drabble 1939-

Wisdom of the Four Winds is the deck featured this week, 280 page hardcover companion book by Barry Brailsford, containing full color images of each card, 50 cards illustrated by Cecilie Okada. Published 1999, StonePrint Press, New Zealand.

The Need To Vanish

Daily Draw: Songs For The Journey Home ~ 4 of Swords

Seems like I've just been hanging on by my thumbs for so long. Since 2008 at least. These images offer respite away which is an interesting concept as opposed to the comfort of home and familiarity.

I'm reminded by this card sometimes home is a place where you stare at the walls all day and at the ceiling all night. Safe. And comfortable. But we are still there, still involved, no where to run, no where to hide, no where to safely think without breaking in pieces.

"Courage is getting away from death by continually coming within an inch of it." ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton 1874-1936

Self-Fulfilling Labels

Daily Draw: Songs For The Journey Home ~ Wheel of Fortune

The authors would like us to think about the labels we apply to life events and changes. We should be in the center, identifying reasons and potentials. More often we are outside the sphere ignoring, waiting for the miracle that never comes, having a moan.

The Wheel of Life is full of good fortune and rewards for hard work, but it's the hard times when we get ourselves really out of whack. Mostly by ignoring the facts or reacting with damage control, rather than being proactive and actively seek to draw good from the bad. It is quite a trick we humans do...managing to plod along in a straight line while our head is buried in the sand.

"The search for the truth was hindered by the desire to do damage control." ~ Reverend Melvin Whitley

What Is Normal?

Daily Draw: Songs For The Journey Home ~ Knight of Coins

This Knight stands on the crux of change, about to go up the red carpeted stairs on her own path, maybe to the sound of blessings, maybe to the sound of curses.

I'm reminded by this card how difficult it is to choose to be different, to be the outlier. It is a forbidding course because we pretty much walk alone, and we also leave the comfort and safety net of commonality and the known. I'm tired of standing at the bottom of the path, time to make some real moves.

"The possibility of stepping into a higher plane is quite real for everyone. It requires no force or effort or sacrifice. It involves little more than changing our ideas about what is normal." ~ Deepak Chopra 1947-

Celebrants

Daily Draw: Songs For The Journey Home ~ Renewal

This is the Temperance card in standard decks, offering us the advice of compromise and moderation. Stuffing ourselves down in a box, going along to get along, follow the line of Sheeple.

After pondering on the image which is indeed a celebration in both thought and action I realized this was the brilliant idea behind my little sister's service. She was casual and uncomplicated, not one for outdated traditions or hidebound thought patterns. So no formal ceremony. There will be a potluck at her home, bring a chair, gatherers can speak if they wish, beyond that, eat visit hug and remember. Cool. Her page.

"How do you go about choosing something that will hold the half of your heart you have to bury?" ~ Jodi Picoult, Mercy

Life = Magic = Life

Daily Draw: Songs For The Journey Home Tarot ~ Magician

I've used the word Magic many times in the nearly 2000 posts here. In the I must be old as dirt sense, I don't get the physics of how boats float and airplanes fly so that will always be magic to me. It's ok, that daily sense of wonder is part of the makeup of my inner joy.

I'm also reminded by this card of the undeniable real magic of the world: the power of the moon on the oceans, mountains that once didn't exist, the life assaults to our living bodies from which we heal, Sun, salt, water, three things living beings can't live without and there they are, freely found. Natural magic fills our days, and at night the magic of sleep and it's power of restoration. Amazing.

"That's the thing with magic. You've got to know it's still here, all around us, or it just stays invisible for you." ~ Charles de Lint 1951-

What Can I Say?

Daily Draw: Songs For The Journey Home Tarot ~ 8 of Cups

What can I say, there is now an empty chair at our family table. My little sister died at 5 AM this morning, after, as the obits say, a short illness. I held her and rocked her until the warmth left her body and I knew she was really gone from us. She was my 10th birthday present. The best one I ever got.

"Stay for me there; I will not fail to meet thee in that hollow vale. And think not much of my delay; I am already on the way." ~ Henry King 1592-1669

Facets

Daily Draw: Songs For The Journey Home ~ 3 of Wands

This is three parts of the same woman. We are all parts of a whole, admitting it or not.

Today: I am a woman on vacation, albeit the first one in nearly a decade, relaxed and at peace.

Today: My dying baby sister is having emergency brain surgery as we speak, and I'm nearly 1000 miles from home. My trusty Dodge Ram Longhorn will get me home by tonight, zombiefied but there.

Today: My happy go lucky inner child will delight in the sights of Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington.

Time to pull my facets together and start the long journey home.

"We fear to know the fearsome and unsavory aspects of ourselves, but we fear even more to know the godlike in ourselves." ~ Abraham Maslow 1906-1970

Hugs Surrounding

Daily Draw: Songs For The Journey Home Tarot ~ King of Cups

We are now on our own Journey Home, twelve hours yesterday; down Michigan, skid around the corner of Chicago and shoot west across Illinois, Iowa, and ending about 50 miles from Nebraska. We are up to 3328 miles to have our two days with friends, and it was worth double that. So many hugs so much laughter and finding things in common that we'd not known of if we'd not met in person.

I see this card and think of those heart-felt hugs and the comments left by friends here who are thinking of me and am so grateful for what I receive, the courage and strength it gives me for beginning home hospice care for my little sister next week after I tie up lose ends at home. I don't look on it as a hard thing, but a greedy opportunity to hug Delores for as long as humanly possible. I'm particularly grateful for the practical hugs of neighbors who have volunteered to care for the goats, my dear little hens, and cats while I'm away. In hugs I am rich indeed.

"I will not play at tug o' war
I'd rather play at hug o' war,
Where everyone hugs
Instead of tugs..." ~ Shel Silverstein 1930-1999

Pick Shuck Eat

Daily Draw: Songs For The Journey Home Tarot ~ Page of Wands

Ah, a good card for following on the past two days. With Wands we get to the action, the putting one or more of those really good ideas to work. As we've passed across Minnesota and Wisconsin (588 miles today) they are beginning to harvest untold acres of corn. Dried on the stalks, the big harvesters come in, pull the stalks, take the cobs off, shuck the corn, remove the kernels from the cob, grind up everything not corn, and return it to the earth. Leaving us with pure food. What kind of mind can think up a piece of equipment that can do that? Perhaps this young page?

"Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you're a thousand miles from the corn field." ~ Dwight David Eisenhower 1890-1969

Bright Ideas

Daily Draw: Songs For The Journey Home Tarot ~ Ace of Swords

This card reminds us that like a tap on the singing bowl or a gong, the reverberation from a bright idea only remains if we put in the work to carry it through. In hindsight, carrying through seems like real magic.

As we drove through Montana and North Dakota today (649 miles) I pondered how good ideas can seem like magic.

• A nation's flag. Fibers and dye. But in the spirit of the original conception what is more beautiful than a bright flag waving in a summer breeze against a huge blue sky. Pure magic. 
• How sesame seeds stay on the bun, who thought of that idea and was surprised when they didn't all fall off. Funny magic.
• Missed magic. I would never choose starving slowly, living terrified, sleeping rough under a big city overpass. I would step off the highway and march into the endless beauty of the open plains until I fell down dead from the pure joy of it.

Magnus raised his hands above his head and clapped once. The room flooded with light. 'You see? You think that would be possible without magic?' 'Actually,' replied Simon, 'It is. If you watched infomercials you'd know that.'  ~ Cassandra Clare 1973-

738 Miles Of Air And Wind

Daily Draw: Songs For The Journey Home Tarot ~ Page of Swords

Titled Wind Innocence, I drew it this morning at 5:30 AM. 738 miles later it is 11 PM in a different time zone. My thoughts on winds and air on the road:

• Home: Autumn air, the scent of cottonwood leaves with the Blue Moon.
• Clear fresh air with sunrise coming through the gorgeous Columbia River Gorge, Oregon
• Enormous wind turbines with 70 foot paddles, science fiction in the wheat fields
• Big wind driven dust devils, Eastern Oregon
• Windows down air, air conditioner air, back and forth back and forth.
• Roadkill skunk air X 4
• Slipstream air as a duck raced us up the Snake River, what powerful wings!
• Smoky air, Idaho, many forest fires, the moon was pink as we came into Montana
• Alpine air, Lolo Pass, where the 60 foot trees limb width is the same at the bottom as the top, pencil trees, lovely
• Night air, Butte Montana

"I still get wildly enthusiastic about little things...I play with leaves. I skip down the street, and run against the wind." ~ Leo F. Buscaglia 1924-1998