What Was Your Moon?

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Today’s card is not a card. It’s a zentangle with a poem. It’s not my poem. And, if I am going to be precise, it’s a haiku. It’s by this guy who knew how to wield a pen and a sword. It’s by a samurai named Mizuta Masahide.

What you see in this zentangle is an alternate translation. This is what I found as an original or closer version.

Barn’s burnt down —
now
I can see the moon.

Both are lovely but I find that I prefer the visceral punch of the second one. It’s so raw but the lyrical hope at the end makes me teary.

The samurai competed in so many things…are you surprised to learn that one of those was also poetry?  How completely opposed is the art of war and the art of poetry?

But I digress. What I wanted to say is this. This poem is the Tower card.

Have you have ever lost your barn (metaphor,darlings, metaphor)? You know…those catastrophic, “my life as I know it is completely over and I shall never see Tara again” moments? [Whoa! Hold on as I whip you from 17th century Japan over to 19th century Georgia!]

Do you remember when you first realized you could see the moon [metaphor again, darlings]? That instant when you realized not only were you going to survive, but you were going to be a stronger version of the you pre-burnt barn?

Yeah. That moment right there.

That’s the moon moment.

Take 180 seconds today to recall that feeling when you realized that you could see beautiful new things even though you’d lost something you thought so precious. Even though you thought you couldn’t go on, you did.

For me, that barn? Well, I’ve had my fair share of burnt barns–the kind that are long and smoldering (the death of my mother), the kind that are middle of the night “Pa! The barn’s on fire” (break up that I thought I’d never survive), to the kind that are like a wildfire took down your barn, your house and your other house too.

What were the moons? After Mama died, I realized that there is a lot of her in me. I hear her come out of my mouth in so many ways. Used to make me cry more than laugh but now I laugh more than cry. That’s a moon.

So what about you? If you care to share what your three minutes brings you, I’d love to hear it.

Seek joy, y’all. Pass it on. See the moon.

Zentangle, Arwen Lynch, Poem by Mizuta Masahide 1657-1723, 6/17/2013

Here is a set of books that I listened to recently. It mesmerized me. It is, in its simplest form, the saga of the Samurai as told through the journey of one boy and one Samurai lord. It’s far more complex than that of course. I highly recommend this series–>Tales of the Otori. It still haunts me.

How Prepared Are You?

lightningToday’s card is a reminder that bad things happen. It is how we react/act that makes us or breaks us. Watching the coverage of the tornadoes that killed so many people in Oklahoma was hard for me. I wept for the dead, the living, and the lost. So many young lives wiped out.

In card 16 of the Gaian Tarot, we see an unusual rendition of the Tower. Typically you see a tall building with the roof being blown off and people leaping out. It is a disturbing image on a good day but was really brought to horrific life for me when I watched the 9/11 news coverage. Now it comes to life again when Mother Nature does such damage.

I am not sure how I would react if I were in Moore, OK. I guess I can’t know because I wasn’t there. I heard of such bravery with neighbors calling neighbors to join them in their shelters. It made me happy to hear that.

Then I watched an interview with a woman who was weeping for her lost pets. There’s a chance they made it but that chance is so slim. She wasn’t home to save them. I had to change channels to love on my babies a bit.

The Tower is not a card you can really plan for but it’s always good to have some sort of disaster plan together. My honey has a bag packed with necessary items for himself and his pets. His fraidy hole, as he likes to call it, is stocked for himself and his pets. He’s no fool when it comes to tornadoes.

The key thing about the Tower card is this. Once it has happened, you have two choices.

Clear the rubble and build again

OR

Leave for another place

I think I would have to clear and build again. There isn’t any place in this world that I know of that doesn’t have some type of severe weather. So wherever I might go, I would still have to have some preparations to put in place for the inevitable.

My heart goes out to all those affected by yesterday’s storms. Rebuilding will occur but the sorrow will be so deep. May your own spiritual beliefs sustain you in this time.

Lightning, Gaian Tarot (limited edition), Joanna Powell Colbert

This deck is going out of print. It’s one of my top reading decks so I own several copies. I urge you to grab your own [aff link].

Or get your own copy of the limited edition here.

Shake-ups, Releases & Changes

When I stopped lying to myself about things, my life got better. Not instantly. No, there was a lot of cleanup that had to be done…personal and professional. I had to own up to many ugly truths about my life and my choices.

Today’s card is a reminder that we can all change someone’s life. I know it may seem a bit odd to use that statement with this particular card, but stick with me. And no, I’m not picking the Death card even though that’s certainly about change. This is about that life-shaking, soul-shattering moment where you suddenly understand that nothing is ever going to be the same.

The Tower is one of those cards I call the Big,Bad,Behometh cards because people tend to get whacked out when they appear. But really, the best description of the Tower that I ever heard (and I so wish I could remember WHERE I hear this) is that the tower is built of lies we tell ourselves. So when those lies get blown apart, the resulting crash is damned painful. But it’s also something else.

It’s damned cleansing.

When I stopped lying to myself about things, my life got better. Not instantly. No, there was a lot of cleanup that had to be done…personal and professional. I had to own up to many ugly truths about my life and my choices. Particularly in the arena of personal relationships–I shudder to think about some of those. But they (and I) are what they are/were.

My sister is the one who told me “you can only control what’s in your hula hoop.” Talk about life-changing. Then when I added that to the philosophy I adopted in 2000 of seeking joy?

BOOM.
POW.
ZAP.

It was like lightning striking, y’all. Among other things, the spread I wrote here where I first mentioned something I’d said on Twitter has been published as part of the Joie de Vivre Tarot.

What I asked was,

What if your life’s purpose was simply “Seek Joy”? Would you have the courage? How hard is it to release the negativity? Seek joy, y’all!

So for nearly four years, that’s what I’ve been doing. May 2013 will be the beginning of my fifth year of steadily following that life’s purpose. So much has changed for me in that time. My personal tower came down hard but the recovery has been awesome.

Now I’m negotiating my life’s path using a new tool. I’ve even got a Facebook group doing it with me. If you have your copy of the 2013 Create Your Incredible Year, I hope you will let me know. Friend me and message me so I can add you to the group. One of the big things that has happened as been a radical change in how I view my work with Tarot. I know it surprised me.

And it came after doing the celebrating and releasing of 2012. It came during my thinking about the one hundred things I wanted to do in 2013.

Wait.

Stop.

Not the one hundred things that I was going to do in 2013. The one hundred things I wanted to do. No guilt. No pressure. No set up for failure. I can want a pony but it’s no failure if I don’t get one.

But I’ll tell you about that radical change tomorrow. It’s going to change many things in my life.

Want to join me on this planner journey I’m on? I have a Facebook group (it’s seeeekrit). Let me know you’ve . I’ll give you the Sekrit code and, if you join by midnight two days ago, you’ll get the Sekrit Decoder Ring and the Super Sekrit Ranger Necktie too. (grin).

Here’s Leonie herself to tell you about this planner.

Seek joy, y’all. Pass it on!

Lightning, Gaian Tarot, Joanna Powell Colbert Limited Edition/Llewellyn Publishing

Kerfuffles, Llamas & Calm

I’ve adopted a “drama is for llamas” attitude and tend to stay out of political kerfuffles or at least backchannel as much as possible. In a way, this is questioning that. But is it questioning my strength of resolve or my choice…

I decided to do a reading on a current situation occurring in my life. It involves another human being trying to cause a kerfuffle with me. At this time, I’ve taken the Continue reading “Kerfuffles, Llamas & Calm”

Musings on the Fool’s Journey: The Fool Meets The Tower

When we last left our foolish Fool, he’d just met the tempting Devil who offered him the answer to his journey if he would place himself in chains. The Fool refused.

So frightened had he been that he’d run until Continue reading “Musings on the Fool’s Journey: The Fool Meets The Tower”

Musing: Negativity In The Tarot

I read an uncomplimentary discussion of the Queen of Cups as being a dreamy female who couldn’t grasp concrete thought? Well, I blew my top. Honestly, it made me personally angry to read that!

A new student of the Tarot asked me why there was so much negativity in the books she was reading. The deck she had been working with gave a gentler slant where other interpretations seemed much more doom and gloom. She and I exchanged a few emails that resulted in Continue reading “Musing: Negativity In The Tarot”

The Sky Is Falling! The Sky Is Falling! And It’s All My Fault!

World Spirit Tarot Tower
Let’s talk about another one of the tarot’s BigBadBehometh cards. OH NO! THE TOWER IS FALLING!

Today’s card is the Tower. In Frank Fradella’s Adventure Tarot, you see a tall tower that reaches far up into the sky. It has been struck by lightning and the top portion is crumbling beneath that electrical attack. The lightning is coming in from the top right hand corner. The tower itself is a gold and glass skyscraper that juts up far above the rest of the city beneath it.

If you focus on this card, Continue reading “The Sky Is Falling! The Sky Is Falling! And It’s All My Fault!”