Like a tide ebbing and flowing, I guess this blog is going to go back and forth between the personal and the universal. Maybe they are essentially the same thing? Especially for someone trying to graduate out of duality!
The other day, I made a reference to becoming one with the river of life, but this morning's cards brought me back into the boat, so to speak.
The Six of Swords is one of the most powerful images in the Rider pack, I think. It is the one with the river man poling a flat-bottomed ferry down the stream. In front of him sits what appears to be a shawl-covered woman and child, and at the bow of the boat, seeming to cut off the passengers' view, are six enormous vertical swords, point down, like a cage. It's a card that suggests the quiet sound of lapping waters but the figures themselves are silently lost in their own thoughts. The traditional reading of the card is journeying, transition, or moving on after a loss; it fits my mood today because yes, after having rejoiced that mystic me had finally found the kind potential longer-term home she's long sought, it turns out that it isn't to be after all. For a few days, I have been in mourning mode; Rachel Pollack's Seventy Eight Degrees of Wisdom phrases it so beautifully as a "long sorrow". It's hard to remember any time in this lifetime when staying in a place that felt like home has been an option. Once again, my vision is obscured, but I am relieved that someone else is propelling the boat. And there are several beautiful harbors on shore. Today, anyway, I must leave it to the ferry man to decide when to head to dry land.
Then, from the Wild Wood pack, Queen of Stones, "Bear". This is a powerful image of a huge cave bear, waking up from hibernation and standing at the cave opening, looking out over a huge valley. The sun is coming up over a beautiful, snaking blue river. For this card, I'm relying on my own interpretation. She is the Goddess, Mother Earth, coming out of her deep sleep and surveying the current world situation. She looks ferocious but loving. There is work to be done. She sees the river from above.
I need this time of mourning, of quiet, thoughtful transition to a new stretch of the river. My human soul and body could never have stood so much change without honoring the need for retreat, for leaving the active poling of the boat to others.
Bear represents the bigger picture. Working as a representative of the divine feminine has been so different than working for "the man"; it helps to remind me that I chose, arguably, a harder path that was almost guaranteed to have fewer lasting physical comforts. At any point in time, I have been where the Goddess needed me to be, doing Her work. It simply must be that by early September, based on her reading of the bigger picture, I need to be elsewhere.
Note to self: keep breathing.
