Sometimes you open a box and get sucker punched. I have a lot of decks. A lot. I am also one of THOSE people who tuck things away without thinking. This means I stumble across things. Things I have no memory of putting in those places.
Happened to me last night. I was perusing my decks trying to decide which one to pull for you today. I saw a box that was unfamiliar. When I got it down, I realized it was my Celtic Tree Oracle by Liz and Colin Murray.
I remember wanting this deck so very much. If memory serves, it was a gift from a dear friend. I used it a bit but never got into it as much as Tarot. It’s a very different system. I do remember that the first card I pulled was Saille.
Saille is Willow. It is lunar rhythms and female aspects. It is also a name I very nearly chose for my Craft name so many years ago. Saille, not Willow. I didn’t choose it for a variety of reasons, but it has always been very close to my heart.
When I opened the box, my stomach and heart swapped spots. I gasped out loud. There was my beautiful sister in her wedding dress. And there were pictures behind that one.
“Steady. She’s going to be in there.”
I said that out loud. I told myself I would be okay. I moved to the next picture to see my sisters and I. Then the next and there she was.
Mama.
Mama about two years before she lost her battle with cancer.
Mama with her short chemo haircut.
Mama with her beautiful smile.
I didn’t cry. I smiled. I realized that I look more like her now than I did then. I realized that her sense of humor is mine. That her smile is mine.
I realized that I am my mother’s daughter.
It also did not surprise me to find Saille as the top card facing up. No, not at all. It also represents February. 😀
Steady. She’s going to be in me forever.
We all have those pictures–in our hands, tucked away in boxes, stored in our memories. The ones that bring that twist of sadness wrapped up in love. As the years go by, I expect I’ll grow to look more and more like her.
Mama. She was my hero in so many ways. Not just the cancer thing. Hell no. Cancer didn’t make her a hero. She was my hero long before that.
For your 180 seconds today, I’m challenging you to tell me who your hero is. Who inspires you and makes you a better person?
For me, it was my mother. That woman was so much to me. I’m blessed to have had a very close relationship with her. I know not all of us are. So who is your hero? Tell me. I want to know.
Because I’m just a bit sad, just a bit raw, just a bit ouchy, I’m going to tell you this again. I love you. It’s important to me to tell you that.
Seek joy, y’all. Pass it on.
Saille, The Celtic Tree Oracle: A System of Divination
I lost my dad last year. He’s my strange angel now 🙂
He always did things just the way he wanted to do them. He had big dreams and he worked hard to make them come true. He was a real manifesting magician.
I feel him watching me often. He liked that I too walk to the beat of my own drum. I will keep doing that.
And I will continue to work towards my dreams and make the most of this strange thing we call life.
I’ll do it for my dad, who lives on in me.
That is such a lovely tribute, Shonna. I imagine he was incredibly proud of you. Did he work with wood/furniture?
He did work with wood — in that he was a logger and then a tree farmer, and in his later life built timber frame homes, and model houses too. Why did you ask?
I had a visual of a lean, almost lanky man installing cabinets. 😀
I love that you are so honest, so real, so compassionate and yet still humourous, so willing to plumb the depths, and still offer love to others. You are one of my hero’s Arwen!
Oh Chloe. How incredibly kind of you. 😀 Thank you!
My hero I have to say has been my mom. She too lost her battle with cancer this month several years ago. This happens to be her birth month as well so I try to dwell on the celebratory aspect of life.I know she would rejoice in that.
Kim, here’s to celebrating the magnificent female that raised you.
Arwen, such a touching post. How true that we all seem to have these boxes of memories that we have put away only to be found at at a time we really need to find them. Thanks for sharing such a personal moment.
Malala Yousafzai, the 14 year old girl that the Taliban shot in the head for speaking out publicly that girls should be educated. And my grandmother, who taught English for 45 years, even though it was the 1930s and she was married and had two kids. And then got a Master’s Degree. And treated every student with respect, as many of them told us at her funeral.
These women, born almost one hundred years apart. They’d like to know about each other, I think.
I have that same deck and it’s meanings really helped me focus when I needed to years ago. What a beautiful memory and testament to your mom. I am forever grateful that I am nothing like my over-controlling, abusive mother. It wasn’t until long after her death that I realized that my step-grandmother Ruth really was my champion and teacher of essential life lessons. A very devout Protestant, her husband an Orangeman, they absolutely detested Catholics, or anyone who didn’t align with their religious beliefs. Yet, this woman convinced her pig-headed husband to help Jews escape from war-torn Europe during WWII, opening their home to them and hosting them in America until they got on their feet here in their new country. They created life-long friendships and it afforded me the opportunity to meet many holocaust survivors when I was a kid. My grandmother’s compassion was palpable. Her innocence of loving others and treating them as they wanted to be treated taught me that I could emulate her behavior instead of my mother’s. Thank you Grandma Ruth for teaching a little girl she didn’t need to mimic a life she didn’t want to. I am forever grateful.
I’m not sure I have a hero usually but currently one of my daughters is my hero. She made it through a serious medical crisis with peace and dignity. She is walking through a financial crisis also with peace, strength, dignity, and purpose.
My mom is also my hero. She is loving and kind and will help without hesitation any time I need it. I never feel judged, only loved, by her.