I realized this morning that this would have been my dad's ninety-somethingth birthday. He read my very first blog nearly six years ago, and announced that he didn't understand it, and I don't think he read any more. Dad was purported to have a genius IQ, so I think the issue was more that he was deeply uncomfortable with introspection and spirituality. At the time, it was a journey in itself to continue to write in the face of patriarchal disapproval or discomfort.
Each new post has pushed me further and further past that barrier, and today's may take the cake. Almost every day, I hear an inner Greek chorus singing, "So-and-so won't like you saying that", and nearly every time I still print "publish" anyway. The chorus has started singing already, and I have barely started!
At least once over the years, I've referred to using Tarot and other oracle cards. I'm sure I hoped that no one would really notice. But this time, I hope you do. For the last few years, part of my morning ritual has been to draw one or two cards, and meditate on what they mean to me, then, often, to write in my physical journal about what I learn. I had been given the Rider-Waite-Smith cards years ago and, like many people, found them initially rather strange or scary, but quickly fell in love with the symbolism and the visual storytelling. Recently, I purchased The Wildwood Tarot (published by Sterling Ethos, New York). The traditional cards have medieval-inspired imagery, and the latter are more Celtic-British woodland-inspired. Recent mornings, after shuffling, I have blindly picked one from each deck.
Today's cards were powerful: 5 of Pentacles (Rider--the image of two poor, sick people walking barefoot through the snow next to a brightly lit cathedral or church), and The Guardian (Wildwood--image of a bear skeleton guarding the entrance to a dark cave, this deck's equivalent of The Devil). I was mulling over what this combination might mean, when I wrote the date in my journal and realized it was my dad's birthday, and immediately it became clear. I'm going to quote partially from my journal entry:
In terms of the devil, "the books talk about addictions, our darkest side, etc. But for someone with [a father with little to no ability to love, help others, or empathize], it's more (or less) than that. A complete black hole.The Void. The constant reminder that you came from nothing, and that you are nothing, and that no matter how hard you try, you will never be 'anything' -- that the 'church' is all lit up and people are going about their business, but you will always be the poor crippled child walking by on the snowy street, seeing no door into the action of life."
Phew. Of course, it may be just an odd coincidence that the Church figured so heavily in my life, and being the wrong gender and on the wrong continent to fully share my musical gifts. But every time I choose 5 of Pentacles, I resonate so very strongly with the poor, shoeless travelers. And the church here isn't just the Church, it is all of the institutions in our current paradigm, all the potential jobs out there in the world. Very early, I managed to slip in the door of corporate America, and served it well. But the minute I left, became clearer about who I really was and what my values were, and started to knock on the doors and windows again, they stopped opening and, indeed, disappeared entirely. There has been a wall between me and thriving, me and the brightly lit inner circle of people doing well.
And the image of The Guardian, the bear skeleton at the door of the dark cave/black hole, looks so comically like my dad in his easy chair that I have to laugh. If I had seen this picture thirty years ago or more, perhaps it would have taken me far less time to understand what was sapping my strength.
I believe we choose our parents, and other factors in the place and time of our birth, so on this July 7, I celebrate that my father (ahem!) "facilitated" such a thorough and difficult life journey. For reasons that are still hard to fathom, I must have had to be the outsider, the "nothing", in this mostly male construct. People may wonder, why all this Goddess stuff? Simply, She represents a construct that is life-giving, and where I am warmly embraced at Her core, no matter what. I am "something" to Her.
As a postscript, it is interesting to realize that in a divine feminine model, quite a few of these cards would literally not be necessary! No one would be out in the snow. And fearful figures wouldn't resonate with most of us anymore.
