Strength

Daily Draw: Goddesses Knowledge Cards, Ix Chel

I drew the Triple Goddess three times more this morning and took it out of the deck because it was getting a bit odd (albeit in a nice way). My next draw was Ix Chel and I placed the cards side by side to see what I might glean.

I was struck by the two big cats. The lioness appears lower than the Triple Goddess indicating the Goddess is in control of her strength. Yet the lion's eyes do speak of a challenge or dare. By contrast the jaguar's gaze is wary. She remains watchful, attentive as she protects Ix Chel.  

Both animals are born with rosettes for camouflage. Lion cubs lose theirs as they mature into adults (although they may retain some on their face) but jaguars retain their spots for life. 

I'm reminded it is often wise to exercise strength with discretion than announce it with a roar. 

The crone again

Daily Draw: Goddesses Knowledge Cards: Triple Goddess

The Crone returns as an aspect of the Triple Goddess. I read on a Wiccan site that to have a relationship with the Crone you must seek her out. I'd like to do this not only through internet research. The Crone is associated with Samhain, a time of honouring the ancestors. Perhaps I'll begin there. 

Webs

Daily Draw: Goddesses Knowledge Cards, Spider Woman

These Goddesses definitely want me to take my time to get to know them. As I've played with the deck this week the same cards keep coming up - this being one of them.

This brought to mind spiral like thinking - the practice of returning over and over to an object of study or a concept and each time making a slightly different interpretation. Sometimes broadening out, sometimes narrowing down, sometimes, sometimes adding another skein or thread. My understanding of the cards has developed in this way through the daily draws. 

I've been pondering today how recursive and linear thought might be shown to be mutually reinforcing rather than oppositional. I can't make those connections yet. Probanly because i"m being to linear....Maybe Spider Woman will help me better understand how knowledge works as a web. 

Softly and lightly

Daily Draw: Goddess Knowledge Cards, Demeter

Susan Seddon Boulet's use of colour and the way she creates illumination and ethereal effects with the lightest and finest of strokes has me gripped. Perhaps these cards are more for meditation than blogging as a I feel my words (and camera) can't do them justice.

Anais Nin has beautifully described her work: 

'these figures are out of our dreams, those which flee from us upon wakening, those which are dispersed like dew at dawn, those which fall apart between our fingers like dust roses. 

Susan has a more muted step, or perhaps she is invisible...more soft-voiced, soft-gestured, as the images do not escape from her. She can return from her voyages with intact descriptions...from places never visited by us but which we remember' 

This Greek mother Goddess Demeter gave the gift of agriculture. The message I take is to cultivate a softer voiced, lighter footed way of being in the world. 

Kaltes

Daily Draw: Goddesses Knowledge Cards: Kaltes

Recently as part of Pull Pen Paint I participated in a session on the divine feminine. I was struck by the fact that although I most of my decks are by women artists and creators I have none specifically dedicated to the goddesses. It made me question myself. Including how I pride myself on being critical and gender aware in the way that I consume, appraise and cite academic texts but to date not so much with tarot and oracles. 

So I have purchased a couple of Goddess decks (purely for the purposes of gender equality)...

This is the shapeshifting moon Goddess Kaltes manifested as a hare - a lunar creature sacred to her. She guides us compassionately to the mysteries of life. I can't find much more about Kaltes on the web. Maybe I'll sit with her a little longer. There is more than just words making up the world. Thank Goddess for the cards...

trustliness

Self Trust Spread using The Wild Unknown Tarot, (C) Kim Krans, Harper Elixir

I think I mentioned a while back that I won an instagram competition for a place on Pull Pen Paint, an online course using the cards as prompts for journaling and art making. I've taken a break from daily draws and am using the PPP prompts instead. This is the self trust spread. 

It was interesting to get two perceiving cards. The King of Swords, my illuminated self, perceives analytically and is fair. The High Priestess perceives intuitively and can be ambiguous. She represents the shadows so it is intriguing to find her in the position of where I can cultivate my light. Focus on inner illumination perhaps? 

The High Priestess is the archetype of the refusal of the call, refusal of ordinary world obligations. Perhaps why this is why the six of pentacles appears as my shadow card. I am afraid that if I embrace the Priestess' mysteries I will become ungrounded and materially unproductive. 

The ten of cups signals how to cultivate and trust both light and shadow. Completing things already started will give energy and create new space for intuitive or creative practices. 

Overall the energy of the spread is water - creativity and emotions. The High Priestess dominates as a major arcana card. According to elemental dignities (I have been reading Mary K Greer) her water together with that of the ten is strong and receptive prevailing over the air and the earth. 

Rather than yielding to the pressure to be like my male counterparts (here the king of swords, proving points and defending arguments) maybe the message is to learn to trust myself to channel a more feminine energy. 

always learning

Daily Draw: Anna K Tarot, Three of Pentacles


I enjoy learning new skills and seeing work in progress. Both the three of pentacles and the eight are favourite cards. Although sometimes the distinctions between the two become a bit blurry. The three is I believe often associated with mastery. This seems to be emphasised here as different from the traditional RWS image the craftsperson works unobserved, unattended. This suggests he or she has achieved a degree of autonomy and can be trusted to do a job well for its own sake. 

I have often wondered why the master appears before the apprentice in the eight. Or why the apprentice appears so late in the suit. Perhaps this speaks to the fact that life is not always a straightforward upward trajectory. We master one set of skills and then later in life we need to learn something new. 

Or (the more I mull this) actually we really want to learn something new. Isn't it wonderful that life continues to present those opportunities?