Taking A Couple Days Off

 

Daily Tarot is taking a couple Dailies off.

 

Need an intuitive lift?

 

http://www.worldoffroud.com/www/online/oracle/oracle/threecard.htm

 

Bless all!

 

Neal

Card ~ March 23

Daily Tarot Is having some computer issues.  Grrrr. 

  

For today’s guidance, I’ve turned to the wonderful Froud Faeries’ Oracle [http://www.worldoffroud.com/www/online/oracle/oracle/single.htm]

  

Bless all! 

  

  

  

Solus Knowledge. Consciousness. Synthesis. Spiritual empowerment.

Solus is radiant, energizing, vitalizing.  This presence in a reading often indicates that something new is being brought into being in our lives — partly through our own efforts and partly through the help we are receiving from other realms.   Miracles may take place.   Movement into the light is occurring.   This is a time for taking action, passing on our blessings and learning, and for service given from a position of strength.   Quote for the Day: Sure, I could of done it different… put my clown in a closet and dressed up in straight clothing. I could of compromised my essence, and swallowed my soul.                                                    ~ Wavy Gravy

 

Tarot Card ~ March 22

Two of Shields

Castle Pendragon

Fortune Cookie: Honest and open dialogue is important today.  So is networking.  Get out and meet new people. Make new connections for your potential benefit. 

 

  

We last saw this card in mid-January.  So it’s back in part to remind us that what we were working on all through the winter is still important.  Let me reemphasize that networking and communications might be kinda sorta important all the time.  So please keep that in mind DAILY.  [Reader gets down off soap box.  Replaces soap.  Carries back to warehouse from which it was pilfered.  Makes note to be taller next lifetime.] 

Some readers see this card as betokening recreation. [So do take at least a little time to celebrate something today, if you please.] Others find it to be about receiving news in writing.  Some say it indicates that the querent is juggling a lot of things at the moment, and must work to keep things on an even keel. [‘Scuse me.  Anybody NOT experiencing that?  Anybody?  I dare you to admit it!]

Anna-Marie Ferguson, creator of the Legend Tarot, writes of successful handling of fluctuating fortunes, employing creative maneuvers and the reevaluation of plans. 

So, dear readers [y’all],  if any of those things resonate for you based on what you’re experiencing lately, or expect to experience in the near future, by all means take advantage of this card’s confirming insights and make some skillful moves on your own behalf. 

In working with clients over a number of years, I find a couple other recommendations to be useful when this card comes up.

First, it shows up as a card about networking.  Get out and meet new people, learn about them and have them learn about you.  Do. Not. Hide. [Tarot guy grumbles and throws things at the monitor.  Then realizes HE’S the one who just typed that.] 

On a deeper level, it’s a card about honest and open dialogue.  You must speak your truth − calmly, calmly if possible – directly to those who need to hear it and/or those who can help you follow through with what your truth requires.  But then you must ALSO patiently, quietly, compassionately listen to the responses of the person you have addressed, and take their honest words into serious consideration.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly for all of us at any time, this is 

The card of

the Kozmic Giggle. 

[That’s the aspect portrayed in the Legend deck.  When Uther, Arthur’s father, came to possess Castle Pendragon, he felt it was hard to defend.  He and his chaps dug a moat and diverted the River Eden to fill it, to help make the place harder to get into.  Well, long story short, the River just wasn’t having any, and each morning Uther found the river running exactly where it always had.  He eventually accepted the situation, laughed at how the Kozmos will have its own joke, even on a king, and went on to work on other things.]  

So it’s also a card that counsels us to retain a sense of humor when done in by mishaps.  And even in a loving universe [and despite our best efforts], there will  surely be some!

 

See?

So network.  Engage compassionately in honest and open dialogue.  And try to keep it light!

Brightest blessings!

Quote for the Day:  What a waste it is to lose one’s mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is.  ~ J. Danforth Quayle

 
Today’s Waethyr:  A great Kozmic wedgie.  Defend yourself with Little Debbie Interdimensional Multiplanar Cream Woozles. [The dessert of the future.]

  On This Date: 1630 – The Massachusetts Bay Colony outlaws the possession of cards, dice, and gaming tables.  Giggle.  Giggle.

 

Tarot Card ~ March 21

Five of Swords

Gawain’s Penance

Fortune Cookie: Live!  Know, know, KNOW that you deserve joy and beauty,   but know that YOU are the only one who CAN reach for it. 

Hmm.  Mmmmm.  Mmmmmmmm…  Mmmmmmmm  mmm mmm. [You probably all recognize that as the melody to “When the Saints Go Marching In.”  Right?]

Mmmmmm.

Anyway, we last saw this card… in mid February, when we were all recovering from Valentine’s Day. Maybe it’ll be a little easier to pay some contention here this time.  Maybe.

Attend and perpend againd [and see if there isn’t SOMETHING in the message of this card that hits you squarely between the chakras]:

In the spirit of something resembling candor [but not actually being candor even though it looks remarkably like candor, as near as anybody can tell on a day like this!], I will once again say that my interpretation of this card in readings veers away from that of most readers I know. Alive or otherwise.  Or in between.

Typical readers will say things like degradation, destruction, dishonor, loss.  Yummy, that.

 Some might say something like,

Move on.  Learn from your experiences, but be positive.  Really helpful there.  Really.  I could come up with something like that before my morning caffeine of choice.  REALLY big help, and compassionate, too.   NOT!

Even Anna-Marie Ferguson, creator of the Legend deck, sees loss, regret, having to accept one’s limitations, or, at best, a valuable lesson, one not to be repeated.

Well [as I always say],  buggrall that!  Phooo-hooooooooo-ey upon that !!!! [Or worse.]

Based on my intuitive guidance and my experience over the last fifteen years or so, when this card shows up for a client, I stand, shamble up onto my soapbox, throw things at them, shake my jowls (or at least several of them) and bellow:

STOP!  

STOP!!  

Stop turning your life

into one long

gawd-awful penance! 

It ain’t supposed to be.  And you don’t DESERVE it to be!

And stop living as though you have some penance you think you’re supposed to do, especially if doing so seems “justified” according to the sad, warped old belief structures of some bozos who laid their weirdness on ya years ago ~ even if they are/were people very close to you.  And even if you know they were doing the best they could. 

Reach out for joy, for beauty, for healing, for the highest and best of your potential. 

Constantly rubbing your own nose in the messes of the past will never bring about positive change.  Never.  It will only keep you from moving upward, and may even keep you stuck exactly where you are, causing you to repeat the errors and disappointments of the past.   

Don’t do that.  That is just purely NOT RIGHT!

Live! 

Know, know, KNOW that you deserve joy and beauty,

that you are entitled to reach for it at every moment

and with every ounce of strength and brilliance you have –

but know that YOU are the only one who CAN reach for it. 

Seek all that is uplifting, and wonderful, and full of Light!  Now!

Bright blessings, beauty and joy!  And did I mention JOY!!!?

Quote for the Day: If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them. ~ Thoreau   

Today’s Weather: Colliding interfaces all along the kozmos. Wield an incantation of chopped liver on wry.  (Or tempeh salad on pita.)

 On This Date: 1952 – Alan Freed presents the Moondog Coronation Ball, the first rock and roll concert, in Cleveland, Ohio. [The crowd was so large and unruly only ONE song was played before the concert was shut down.]

There are 285 days remaining until the end of the year.  So boogie!

 

Tarot Card ~ March 20 Happy Spring!

The Horned One

Cernunnos

Fortune Cookie: Believe in and use your connection to Spirit to understand how you can bring about positive change through your very being and through your prayerwork in your day-to-day life.

  

Happy Spring!!!

Wow!  What a card for the season!  And even more so for the entire springtime here on the northern part of the planet.  And, as at least a few of you may remember, this was the card for Christmas Eve!  

 

 

When this fellow showed up for an earlier blog posting, I was given the following Spirit-based insight:“Now… remember that EVERY!!! day is a day of power, a day of connection,  a day of hope and magic and a day of celebration. 

Live THAT,

why don’t you??”

As I said then, I should probably just end the posting with that insight and walk away now, y’know?  It’s plenty good information, and would save you a few minutes of additional reading to boot.

But NO-OOOO-OH.  [Oh well.  You’re a grown up.  You can stop reading whenever you want to.  Or just look at the daily horoscope in the paper or something on Twitter or whatever.] 

Anyway…

 

Following a Shamanic spirituality as I do, I simply consider this just about the most powerful card in the deck.  Let me describe it a bit for you

as it’s portrayed by Anna-Marie Ferguson in her Legend deck.There’s a beautifully muscled fellow sitting cross legged out in the woods under a bright full moon.  His legs are shaggy and end in hooves.  He has stag’s antlers protruding from his head.  In his right hand he holds a golden torc ~ the old Celtic symbol of kingship ~ in his left a live serpent.  He is surrounded by folk of the wood ~ fox, otter, boar, stag, frog.  

It’s a beautiful, mystical, magical card. Wish I had it as a huge poster.

The painting on the card depicts images from the famous Gundestrup cauldron, a first century BC ritual silver vessel found deep in a Danish bog. 

Sacred, beautiful objects like this were ritually cast into bogs ~ which were considered places of mystery, power and great magic ~ as sacrificial gifts. [Better than tossing in the odd Ukrainian, I say.  And much better received by the Spirit of the place, as well.]

You can read more about the cauldron at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gundestrup .

Cernunnos, the fellow depicted in the card is the Celtic incarnation of the Horned God.  He is considered to be the Lord of the Animals.

[In the spirit of full disclosure: in other decks, this card is often depicted by the devil, with some attendant negative interpretations.  Even Anna-Marie Ferguson, creator of the Legend deck, alludes to the card’s primordial power, and emphasizes the need to channel this power positively and for good.]

Here is what I see in the card, based on many years of working with clients. 

This is a truly shamanic card in that it says,

You [yes, YOU!] have the capacity to connect with the realm of Spirit.  You have an ability to bring Spirit through into ordinary reality in a way that can functionally, positively bring about change. 

Because you have that capacity ~ from the Shaman’s perspective ~ you have the OBLIGATION to develop it and use it for the highest and best of all.

So, in this beautiful, hopeful season [whatever season or day of the year it may be, as we have been informed above]

~ explore your connection to Spirit (your guardian angels, the Universal Life Force, God, Goddess, The Infinite or however you perceive Him/Her/It)

~ believe in — in fact ASSUME — a functional connectedness

~ open yourself to the goodness and healing and wisdom that Spirit offers

~ use your connection to explore and understand how to bring about positive change through your very being and through your prayerwork in your day-to-day life.

Brightest blessings, joy, hope, deep spiritual connection and healing! 

Quote for the Day:  Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to continually be part of unanimity. ~ Christopher Morley

Today’s Weather:  Invisibility.  And Exemption. Lose not thy cool; rather, entertain a knowing ghost.   

On This Date: 1952 – The United States Senate ratifies a peace treaty with Japan. [A bit tardy, one might think.]

 

 

Tarot Card ~ March 19

Nine of Swords

Lily Maid of Astolat 

  

First, this is a card that says be very careful NOT to take on the emotions of others.  You may choose to be kind and be a shoulder for another to cry on.  But understand that to do so does NOT involve letting someone else’s disappointment or depression take you over; you are NOT meant to be anyone else’s emotional and psychic trash bin. 

  

If you’re one of those people who lets a friend come over and dump all his baggage on you so that he can then just skip away, free as a bird and back in the groove while you need to go hide behind the couch – STOPPIT!  That’s unhealthy behavior.  It’s not kind.  It’s not even really helpful to you OR him.

 

Second, do not take responsibility for other people’s emotions.  Yes, we all do things that disappoint others, including those we love.  But their emotions in response to the situation are THEIRS to deal with and work through.

  

I remember overhearing a woman in a store, talking to her four-year-old daughter, saying, ‘If you keep acting this way Daddy’s going to divorce us, and it will be all your fault!’ [Just. Plain. Vile!!!!]  It’s obvious how false and manipulative − not to mention cruel − that is. 

  

Whether we like it or not, EACH OF US is responsible for OUR emotions and HOW WE RESPOND to all the situations in our life.  That’s true for everybody else as well. So don’t let anyone bamboozle you into thinking different.

  

Third, don’t take responsibility for anyone else’s life or life choices.  If you’re in a position to help someone when they’re lost or down, and you CHOOSE to offer that, do so – if you can do it in a way that’s safe and healthy, non-manipulative, non-addictive, non-codependent, with healthy boundaries.  It’s like they say on an airliner:  if you’re traveling with a child and the air masks come down, put yours on first, THEN put on the child’s. 

  

So:

  

~ Be careful today not to overextend yourself in unfair (especially to yourself) or unhealthy ways. 

~ Hold good boundaries. 

~ Be compassionate, but don’t be a doormat or a crying towel. 

~ Double-check your own energy to be sure depletion isn’t closer than you may have realized. 

~ If it seems depletion may be near, do what you need to do to take care of YOU!

  

Bright blessings, healthy boundaries, good choices and discretion!

  

Quote for the Day: Most of the bad guys in the real world don’t know that they are bad guys. You don’t get a flashing warning sign that you’re about to damn yourself. It sneaks up on you when you aren’t looking. ~ Jim Butcher 
   

 

Today’s Weather:  Intramural  muffin-baiting.  Old Byrds records.  Faeriefire.

  

On this Date: 1915 – Pluto is photographed for the first time but is not recognized as a planet.

 

 

 

 

  

  

Fortune Cookie: Be careful today not to overextend yourself in unfair –especially to yourself — or unhealthy ways.  And hold solid, healthy boundaries! 

 

  

 

Okay! Okay!  I admit it.  It’s another long post.

  

This is a card we last saw almost exactly two months ago.  And as I said then, in our codependent, enmeshed and embalmed culture, it’s always good to be reminded of what this card has to say.  And read it.  And print it out.  And post it next to your bathroom mirror.  And every mirror you own.  Including the rear view mirror of your vehicle.   And send it to yourself as a text message three times a day.  And stuff.

  

[Finishes pontificating. Wipes sweat off of jowls.  Or at least a few.  Gets down off soap box.  Makes a feeble attempt to tidy hair and looks around for… Tidies hair and…  Tidies… Aw buggrit!   Tosses brush out window, accidentally nailing a groggy early-morning blue jay.  Looks around for coffee.  Asks, “Where was I?”  Where, or who?  Oh.  Right.  Where!]

  

Okay.

  

This is a card of warning, plain and simple.

  

Different readers vary the focal issues being dealt with here, so I’ll give bits and pieces of other perspectives before moosing in with my take on things.

  

Betty – those of you who read this blog rather regularly will remember — was my long-time teacher and friend.  She used to turn the elucidation of this card into a real piece of performance art.  When Nine of Swords would come up, she’d shake her head, give a low whistle, shake her head again, look closely at the card, look up  mournfully at me − or whoever she was reading for − and say softly, “You gotta be careful.  This situation is nearly DEAD.”  Got me whimpering every time.  Even when I was just watching her read for somebody else.

  

So if that’s the interpretation of the card we’re working with, one of the things to be careful about − depending on exactly what’s being examined in the reading – is that you and/or a situation may be about to seriously pass the point of flameout or burnout and you need to pull back, regroup, rethink things and really recover before you go off the deep end or go up in smoke. 

  

So please, today, give that possibility some serious thought throughout all major aspects of your life.  [Except those that involve reading this daily card.  No sense going overboard, then, is there?]

  

Some readers find this to be a card of delay, deception and disappointment − or worse.  [Charming!]  Others indicate that it betokens fear and dread for the future, and it implies you should take a course of action that will still and calm the mind to help instill courage. [Yeah.  That there is a sentence that would really help ME calm down, you betcha!  Yo! Waiter!  Bushmill’s triple here.  Straight up!] 

  

Other sources say the card recommends finding a path of extra alertness and wariness, along the lines of “cover your back [or, uh… fundament],” for now, anyway.

  

Anna-Marie Ferguson, creator of the Legend deck, writes of pining for a loved one, fretful dreams and obsessions.  Her interpretation that I’m most interested in (on your behalf) is depression blinding us to the possibilities and beauty that surround us.  (Don’t go there!  You DO NOT need to be in that place!!!!!)

  

My take?

  

When this card turns up in a reading for a client, I say things like, “Okay, several levels of meaning here, and you need to pay close attention to each one.”

 

Tarot Card ~ March 18

Knight of Swords

Gawain

Fortune Cookie: Go after it. Go! Go! Go! But go after it smart, careful, clear and clean! 

Last saw this guy on August 1st!  It’s one of those cards I have a trouble integrating into my life.  Maybe I need a thyroid supplement.  Kelp.  A fire under my… Uh… Something.

  

 

It’s a card that says,

Okay, okay, okay!  You over there!  And you.  You, too!  Everybody! Hey! 

Everyone! Up’nat’em!!! 

The Knight of Swords is a card of action.  Fiery, passionate action.  So if there’s something you’ve been putting off, or something you have wanted to do but always delay, today is the day to get started.  With!  Gusto!!

However, I will also share that this Knight has occasionally (actually ruddy well frequently) been known to leap before he looks, to the ultimate dismay of himself − and pretty much everybody who is by some curious circumstance or mischance suddenly involved with cleansing him of the huge, deep pile of “country Frisbees” [bull puckey] he has launched himself into. 

Quite an image, no?

And, he has from time to time gone so far as to find himself moving with such great passion that, all unknowing, he oversteps appropriate bounds, doesn’t check out the situation and its implications thoroughly, and blows his rosy red Orkney rump to smithereens in the process − taking a pile of other good folk down with him in the mess. If he thinks of them at all — the self centered twerp — he thinks of them as collateral damage.

Other readers see the Knight of Swords as representing skill and bravery, or wrath and war. [A wee tad of distinction there, don’t you think, friends?  Eh?] 

Anna-Marie Ferguson, creator of the Legend deck, sees him as a determined, intelligent young man [uh… person] – so keep an eye out – but also as someone who may be overeager to display heroics which can cause him to misjudge. [Thus, the country Frisbees.  Or meadow muffins.  Bullcrumpets.  Whatever.]

SO: 

Get moving!!!! 

But take a few moments or go a few steps back to calmly, objectively check out the terrain really thoroughly first. 

And double-check that you are acting with integrity, and doing something that is in fact desired by all parties who have a vote. (You might even wanna go so far as to further explore whether you are about to do something that IS in fact for the highest and best.  Always a useful test.  Imagine what the planet might be like today if we had pretty much all done that all along.) 

As I’ve said before:

That way you won’t paint your foyer in record time, but paint it the lavender shade that was discussed while tippling on New Year’s Eve rather than a pale ice gray − you know, the color that matches the paint chip that was left under your wallet before you headed to the hardware store.  Dipstick.

Go after it, but

go after it smart, careful, clear and clean!    

Bright Blessings and a soft landing!

Quote for the Day:  Remember, people will judge you by your actions, not your intentions. You may have a heart of gold — but so does a hard-boiled egg. ~ Anon.

 And: We don’t want to go back to tomorrow, we want to go forward.  ~ J. Danforth Quayle  

Today’s Weather: Upwelling downpours.  Carry a Burberry brolly under each clavicle.  Or is it clavier?    

On This Date: 1834 – Six farm labourers from Tolpuddle, Dorset, England are sentenced to be transported to Australia for forming a trade union.  [Why does that sound…]

A Quote for Yesterday: …The Irish are “a proud and intelligent people, who had a language, a literature, when the barbarian woad-painted Briton was first learning to walk upright.”  ~ Brendan Behan

  

 

Tarot Card ~ March 17

The Magician

Merlin

  

Fortune Cookie: Honor the Magician in you! And live a life in balance, moment by moment so you can access and use all of your wonderful, magical  skills and gifts.      

 

Poor you.  Those of you who have been here before will remember that this is a really long Nealian post.  Well, this card is worth a long read, and some extra contemplation.  Especially today.

I consider The Magician to be the Ace of the Major Arcana in the Tarot deck.  (The Major Arcana are the twenty-two cards that are all archetypal, allegorical figures – The Magician, The Tower, The Priestess, etc. − that have no complement in a regular deck of playing cards.)

So, as you’ve heard me say before, Aces in any Tarot deck are cards of a new beginning.

Therefore:

~ How can you (how do you need to) begin your life anew, today, right now?  Or at least open yourself to the possibilities that can help bring it? 

~ What changes can you begin, even in small ways? 

~ What potentials can you believe in, hope for, reach for and remember?

Here’s an excerpt from an article on my web site (www.shamanspath.org) that will give you a bit more Nealio’s uniquay perspectivo info about The Magician:

“When I look at The Magician, no matter what deck I hold, I consistently see (and sometimes sense through intuitive awareness) some specific elements or aspects: 

There’s the element of deep scholarship and functional learning, often represented by books, scrolls or papers. 

There’s the element of magical tools, including wands, crystals, and icons from various traditions.  [What are YOUR magical tools, by the way? Piano?  Pen?  Computer?  Healing hands? Trowel?  Paintbrush? Clay and cloth?  Voice?  Smile? Attitude? A killer cuppa coffee at just the right moment?  Or a killer cuppa somethin’?]

There’s an element of ceremony or ritual, often depicted in the motions of The Magician. 

There’s a connection to the realms of Spirit, often represented through the presence of spirit helpers like angels or totem animals being present, and possibly assisting. 

And there’s an aspect of connection to Power – of focusing will, energy, mind and soul to bring positive things into being in the world.    

When I read for a client, I may find that each or any of those elements seen in the card should be selected and emphasized for a particular person, and then included in recommended “homework” I may suggest as a result of our session.  

[For example: softly sing to yourself your favorite rock song from when you were sixteen years old. Sing it three times a day until the snow flies next December to help you reconnect with the magic that has always been in you but has been allowed to go fallow.] 

[Or: remember and reread the three novels that have been most influential in your life to help remind you what you really care about, and why.] 

[Or: write a quick toss-off (no judgement) haiku a day for thirty-six days to help re-find and heal the writer in your soul.]  

Importantly, each of the elements I “see” in The Magician card is a thing that many of us have had learned out of us as we have “grown up.” 

So we give those things, which are central to many traditional cultures and most spiritualities, extremely short shrift as we attend to our cultural paradigms for living a fulfilling life in the here and now as we have been taught. 

As one client ruefully said, ‘I have ritual in my life.  I DO.  Every day except Sunday, I get up at seven.  I stop at the ’Buck’s at 7:45 for a grande cappuccino.  At noon, I eat rabbit food from a black plastic bowl.  I worship the Goddess of spinning at the gym ’most every evening, and I’m prostrate under goose down with TIVO by 10:00 at night.  I might as well be a nun.’

Well………… Okay. 

But that’s not quite what I have in mind by ritual.  Although, over the course of working with any client, I may help them find that such events and actions, which most of us would consider meaningless from a perspective of personal ceremony, can in fact take on deeper meaning and become a connection to our higher aspects for our own magical good —  if we consciously determine that they will.

But back to The Magician.

There’s an additional aspect of the card that I came to understand one afternoon when I was reading for someone on the cusp of a beneficial but stressful personal − let’s call it − evolution. 

I stressed that The Magician, or in our case, Merlin the Wizard, brings together 1. learning + 2. tools + 3. ritual or ceremony + 4. spiritual connection + 5. guidance/embracing of power for the benefit of self and others. 

BUT, I realized as I was speaking to this particular client:

in order to be able to do so – to be ready to blend, focus and use each of those elements at the right moment, perhaps in an instant – The Magician must attend to living a truly balanced and positive life, moment by moment.  And that’s something our culture hasn’t really helped us with much over the last century or two (or fifty, come to that).”

So given all that:

How do you need to honor the Magician in you? 

And how do you need to live a life in balance so you can access and use all of your wonderful skills and gifts IN THE MOMENT when they can be most helpful to you and to us all?

Work with that today, and see what magic you can claim − and work − for the highest and best of all of us!

Bright blessings and YOUR OWN Magic!!!

Quote for the Day:  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

Today’s Weather:  Minor seagulls.  Quantum pedantics.  Keep!  Dancing!  

On This Date: 1780 – George Washington grants the Continental Army a holiday “as an act of solidarity with the Irish in their fight for independence.”

Happy! Happy!

  

 

 

Tarot Card ~ March 16

King of Swords

Mordred

Fortune Cookie: What are your highest ideals?  What are your deepest passions?  Where do they intersect and support each other?  What are the specific, definable, practical steps that will carry you to living them?  How can you begin those steps TODAY?  And how can you keep to them EVERY day?

 No, he STILL does NOT look like Johnny Depp.  Not a bit.  Not even a little.  Hardly. At all.  Really.  Not ever.

 To view the card: http://strangerealms.multiply.com/photos/album/65/Legend_The_Arthurian_Tarot#photo=65

 

Oh.

As those of you who are regular readers of the blog, AND have a fairly good number of still-functioning brain cells […which leaves me out {What does?} Never mind! {Okay!}] may remember, this was the daily card about six weeks ago. Which, I suppose, is of no real significance whatsoever.  [{What is?  Or isn’t?} Never mind! {Okay!}]

As I said then:

The King of Swords is one of those cards where each Tarot deck, each author writing about Tarot, and each reader has his or her own unique spin on what meanings are most truly representative and therefore accurate.

And then, to assign Mordred (more about him toward the end) to the card.  Lotta heavy weight on this card here, friends!!

So here are some of the interpretations I’ve gotten from others:

~ the bloody bastard who never knows when to stop fighting

~ a ruthless and daring person (likely male)

~ one (usually a man or someone of strong masculine energy) who sits in judgement

~ the innovative but probably unpredictable leader

~ a revolutionary    

~ a sign that now is the time to make a clean break with what you have been doing up until now and go off in your own unique direction.

So if any of those interpretations mesh with how it seems you need to be in your life just now and for the rest of this season (or mayhaps represents the energy that’s intersecting and/or interfering with your life), then pay attention and act accordingly – i.e., if the interpretation accurately describes someone else, accept that your perceptions about the person are TRUE!, then figure out what to do from there.

I did a shamanic journey to determine how I should generally interpret this card for my clients.  A spirit guide in the form of a great black and silver dragon came by.   It said,  

This is what you need to know about the King of Swords. 

The King of Swords has three major characteristics:

First, he is so idealistic he often lets his head drift away into the clouds and he becomes a hopeless flake – which will often cause him to fail.

Second, he is so passionate he often loses track of what’s sensible, appropriate − or even legal − and he blows his own ass up by getting crazy-emotional about what he wants or hopes for – which will often cause him to fail.

Third, as a result of the first and second items above, he has actually learned from the example of the Queen of Swords and he has FORCED himself to develop the will to become strategic about what he wants.

He asks himself what he would need to do in order to be true to his highest ideals AND his deepest passions.  He determines where and when and how they could best blend together. He refines his goals, and then develops a specific, detailed plan that incorporates every major step [and most of the baby steps] necessary to take him from where he is to where his highest ideals and deepest passions would lead him to be.

And then he exerts the will to hold himself to that plan, day by day, until shifts in his higher ideals or deeper passions cause him to rethink his goals − and start the whole process over again.

Hard work, but worth the effort.  

How would your life be different if you had done that, and held yourself to it, twenty years ago? 

It’s never too late to start.

[About Mordred:  pretty much everyone knows him as the ‘illegitimate’ son and only child of Arthur. According to most legends, Mordred, out of evil or just out of spite, plotted and schemed to displace The King and, in the process, brought down Camelot.  Maybe that is how it was.  There are a number of variations on that theme throughout the tales.  But in one version of the legends, Arthur and Mordred were reconciled in the end; they died fighting side by side against foreign invaders.  Maybe so.]

So:  What are your highest ideals?  What are your deepest passions?  Where do they intersect and support each other?  What are the specific, definable, practical steps that will carry you to living them?  How can you begin those steps TODAY?  And how can you keep to them EVERY day?

Bright blessings, high ideals, passion and success!

  

Quote for the Day: Though I often run out of courage and good sense, stubbornness keeps me going. ~ Simon R.  Green 

 

 

Today’s Waethyr: Milder.  [{Milder than what?} What?  {What?}  What?{Where?} What? {Okay!}]  With cheese.  Uh… Right!

 

On This Date: 1621 – Samoset, a Mohegan, visits the settlers of Plymouth Colony and greets them, “Welcome, Englishmen! My name is Samoset.”

Tarot Card ~ March 15

Queen of Shields

Igraine

Fortune Cookie:  Ask yourself, “What is really important?  Now how do I attend to that?  And how can I do it really, really well?”

 

 

 

This card last turned for us in early February.  And it’s always good for a bit of a reminder.  So:

Attend:

Other readers find this card indicates opulence, generosity, liberty, security, and perhaps even greatness of soul.  Certainly good stuff.

Anna-Marie Ferguson, creator of the Legend deck I use, sees it betokening a sensible, considerate woman (or person), an effective advocate, one who uses her considerable influence and power to help those less fortunate.  [Find me one such.  And send her my way as ye marketinge manageress! NOW!!!!!]

So if that’s the kind of energy you’re hoping to find and/or embody today, JUMP IN!

In working with my clients, I’ve come to see the Queen of Shields as very strongly paralleling the King of Shields. [Like THAT insight took years of intensive training, right?]

This is, therefore what I call the card of the Good Queen.  [For those of you old enough to get the reference, I’ve also occasionally called it “the Harriet Nelson card.”]

This is the Queen who understands that her mission is to care for the health of her kingdom – perhaps behind the scenes, perhaps boldly and with great fanfare − and to help take care of her subjects so that they generally can take care of themselves.

She knows how the crops are growing, how the children are faring, whether the creatures are well, if the King’s men are living up to their obligations and so on.  She’s perfectly comfortable taking the limelight, and will be sweet or brash about it as will best serve the kingdom, but she does not seek it for herself and does not actually give a brass farthing for it except as a tool for doing good. 

Like the King, the hard lesson she has learned is that there will always be more things asked of her than she can possibly fulfill, more things in need of attention than she can possibly do.  She has, therefore, come to understand and be comfortable with the necessity of allocating resources, caring and effort in such a way as will provide the greatest return and benefit to her King and the kingdom.

In her world, it IS NOT the squeakiest wheel that gets the grease; it’s the wheel whose repair is most significant and valuable to the well being of the King, the people and the land.

So, beginning today, how should you come to understand better the myriad workings of your kingdom?  (What, in fact, IS your kingdom?)  And how do you need to give yourself — in a functional, practical way — permission to attend to that which is really MOST IMPORTANT rather than that which seems MOST URGENT (or most annoying) in order to keep your kingdom’s balance, harmony and prosperity at the forefront of your rule?  What do you need to let go of, or let go fallow, or let go to hell, for that matter, in order for the stuff you truly came here to do to get done and get done well?   

So ask yourself, “What is really important?  Now how do I attend to that?  And how can I do it really, really well?”

Bright blessings as you rule all you survey! [Particularly the important stuff!]  

Quote for the Day:  Republicans understand the importance of bondage between a mother and child. ~ J. Danforth Quayle  [Good.  God.]

Today’s Waethyr:  Mugwort muffins.  Sunny in the psychotropic regions.  Giggle.

   

  

And something else.  What was it?

  Oh.  Yeah.

 

  

On This Date:  1952 – In Cilaos, Réunion, 73 inches of rain falls in one day, setting a new world record.