Today I have permission to.......

Inspired by a thread on Aeclectic Tarot I decided to draw one card and take from it everything I can see, and use it as a permission slip or gift voucher to do something nice for me..

Using the Wildwood Tarot I shuffled and cut the deck and drew a card from the top....... drumroll........

The card I drew was The Journey..... had to smile :) The Journey card in The Wildwood Tarot is number 13 which of course is usually the Death card, but we all know that Death isn't death, just change, and the Journey is quite a neat name for it I think.

The card shows a raven or crow eating the last of the flesh from as reindeer skull, high up in the mountains I think. There are five more corvids flying in silhouette against a huge full moon. There are a couple of huge old tree's in the background. They have no leaves, so either they are dead or it is winter. I think winter.

This is one of my favourite cards in the deck...the more I see of Will Worthington's art, the more I love it, but it this deck especially.

The Wildwood Tarot

The Raven is a very magical creature, and he warns of betrayal and danger. He is a guardian of those at rest, and ravens are still said to this day to guard the head of Bran in the Tower of London. Raven is excellent at crossing between the worlds and so is a great messenger. He not only protects the good but will instill fear in the heart of enemies. Here he is stripping the last of the flesh from a long dead reindeer skull, recycling, the alchemy of turning death into sustenance and life. The great deer who was a king in his day is still serving his land and its creatures even in death.

The full moon is another symbol of life's cycles, just as she will wane so will she wax again, the tree's will get new life and the mountain will see many more sunrises. The journey is never ending, the journey of the wheel... life to death and back again. Sometimes it is time for one journey to end and another to begin.

The skull being stripped to the bone is another message, looking deep into yourself and finding what lies there, what is essentially you, or me. A journey within. So many signs of the past and the future.

Somehow, I was guided by this card to finding an old poster that I used to have on my wall in the old farmhouse we lived in a few years ago. It was the best summer I ever had here and definitely the best Christmas. My children were still children, we were a tribe who survived, who stuck together. But now as things change and grow, two of those children are off on their own journey's, no longer at home. It is hard for me to accept the end of that stage of their journey with me, but sometimes, things have to end for life to carry on. I have thought a lot about when they were small, in England, how I loved this time of year. How I have come to dread it. Why?

I feel this card is telling me to reap the good and the joy from the past and bring it to life in the now.... So I have put up my old torn poster in my bathroom, it looks colourful and joyful. I am giving myself permission to accept the cycles of life, to embrace the joy in today and be thankful for my little people. I will read my old blog, and remember, when I look back on that wonderful magical summer, there were very hard sad times then too. But in my memories I only feel the joy of our family life then... this is what carries us forward. One day, these days will be looked back on fondly.. the dark times will be just shadows, necessary to allow the brightness to shine.....I know this..its the cycle of life.... the chiaroscuro of existence.

I just found a blog post from 7 years ago, showing that poster, in my old home.  I entitled the post "I trust....." I cannot think of anything more fitting to read now.... and ya know. that thing I wanted so badly back then, and that seemed way beyond my reach, was New Zealand residency, the right to live in a land we had come to love. We now have that, and in 6 weeks it will be permanent, forever! I did that... I achieved that, very much in the face of adversity and against all odds....and oh boy does it make me feel good!

Today I give myself the gift of celebration, and a huge pat on the back!!!

Bune - A Fallen Angel

 Today's draw from the Fallen Angels Oracle is Bune... this is what  S.L. MacGregor Mathers had to say about him in the Goetia  (1904):

 The Twenty-sixth Spirit is Bune (or Bim). He is a Strong, Great and Mighty Duke. He appeareth in the form of a Dragon with three heads, one like a Dog, one like a Gryphon, and one like a Man. He speaketh with a high and comely Voice. He changeth the Place of the Dead, and causeth the Spirits which be under him to gather together upon your Sepulchres. He giveth Riches unto a Man, and maketh him Wise and Eloquent. He giveth true Answers unto Demands. And he governeth 30 Legions of Spirits. His Seal is this, unto the which he oweth Obedience. He hath another Seal (which is the first of these but the last is the best).

Bune - Fallen Angels Oracle

It is hard to make out from the card but this angelic figure does have the head of an Eagle or a gryphon. Apparently Bune is connected with the wolves too, which is timely as I recently watched an amazing movie on youtube:  Living with Wolves.

Bune is one of the great dukes of hell, the word on this card is adventure but I am not quite sure how it applies. As Bune also has some connection with Anubis the jackal headed, Egyptian funeral God who weighs hearts at death, so he is sometimes compared to the Death card in the tarot. Although this card can hint at an actual ending or death, it tends to relate more often, to a transition from one stage of life to the next.

Nothing new there... especially after yesterdays Wheel!

I find the Fallen Angels quite hard to read with, I do love them but the images are not that open to intuitive readings. Still they proved a good lesson in Demonology and the Lesser Key of Solomon!

Full Moon Spread with Sweet Twilight

For today I decided to do a Full Moon spread instead of a daily draw, as the Moon will be full in about 5 hours time.... I wanted to catch it before it begins to wane. I used this spread designed by
Eowyn on Aeclectic Tarot, along with my Tarot of the Sweet Twilight.

Full Moon Spread by Eowyn

 ****2****
1*********3
 ****0****

3. What begins to fade away, to darken, to abandon you... or what needs to be.
2. What gets completed. What closes a cycle.
1. What can be seen with clarity, so bright that can even blind you.
0. Yourself. Shadow card, from the base of the deck.

Eowyn has the cards laid out one above the other in a line, but because I wanted to photograph the reading for this blog I laid mine out around the face of the moon with the zero shadow card at the bottom and then moving clockwise with the other three cards.

Full Moon Spread - Tarot of the Sweet Twilight

0 - Yourself. Shadow card, from the base of the deck - The Empress

For the Shadow card I drew  The Empress. I dont feel too much like the traditional Empress at the moment, but I can relate to this half submerged creature. She looks calm and balanced and actually I do feel calm, like the calm after the storm if not quite Venus rising from the waves! All elements are here showing no struggle between any of them... she wears fire, stands half in air and half in water and she carries the earth in her hand. Moon Goddess and Earth Mother, Fire Maiden and Mermaid!
I love her big heart shaped crown..... I definitely rule with my heart and not my head. I also see the water as emotions which she is rising from. Part of her is still submerged in emotions but she is holding her world out of the water. I can relate to this. The fishes all want a little bit of her.. or maybe a great big chunk... I can relate to this too. But also she is part of everything in her world... as I am.
Someone told me the other day how my children have taken parts of me just as I am getting new parts from them. We are one.

1 -  What can be seen with clarity, so bright that can even blind you - Death

Another Major Arcana..... and what a gorgeous card. The skeleton is so loving, and it looks to me as if he is carrying the sleeping girl away from the shadow of death which is in the scythe of the grim reaper behind him. he is moving away from the Moon and towards the Sun and the light. There is however a desert to cross, maybe he has done most of the journey and is nearing the end. The skull and the snake remind me of a print I have of the Mexican border... there are skulls and snakes there... Snakes have always been signs of regeneration and transformation and of course temptation. Skulls are a symbol of impermanence and even considered lucky by some cultures. Perhaps this skull is signifying the border, the edge, and soon the two will be out of the desert and moving into a new lusher country. I feel as if I am the person being moved on.... I have felt this for some time, I am not sure what is moving me, but some force is making it happen....

2 - What gets completed. What closes a cycle - Seven of Chalices

Two skeletons in this reading.... the girl looks at her reflection in the water and see's death, the death of her old self maybe... or the death of feeling....emotion... An emotional death.... again I am gobsmacked by this tarot deck. Behind her the future is lush and bright and life beckons, but she cant see that in her watery mirror yet... but if she looks deep enough she will. Is she looking to find who she truly is? Has she left the world behind for a while to contemplate who she is?

Death has one of the cups, it is just a reflection, is it something she has to leave behind ...something she can no longer touch, or an emotion she can no longer feel? That would work for me. Of course she could be intoxicated.... three of the goblets are empty and one is in the water... strangely enough I haven't been able to drink wine for ages!

The girl sits between life and death, which is where we all sit, all of the time, for all we have is now.

3 - What begins to fade away, to darken, to abandon you... or what needs to be - The World

Sadness? Will sadness abandon me? This is an amazing card.... the World is crying and the sun shines through her tears and makes a rainbow... the sign of hope. Stars are twinkling and the little person is standing on the Moon (?) holding up a bowl to receive the love and joy and sorrow of the world. Our planet. There is a flower on the moon growing up.... whats this? Life on another planet... is it showing that there is more than the earth that needs our love and care and attention.

Everything is here.... a cycle is complete with The World card.... there have been struggles and hardships but it is time to hold up our offering bowls and celebrate, be thankful for we have gotten this far, and there is much to live for.

As far as the position of this card in the layout goes... maybe what is fading away is that which is meant to fade away, the end of a major cycle in my life... what once seemed light and all there was to live for is now in shadow, and I can hardly see it?

There are a lot of deaths in this reading... I am definitely looking at changes, endings and new beginnings. But I have known this for a while. Three Major Arcana cards are pretty strong stuff in a four card spread! I will think about this more tomorrow. Time to watch an episode of Lynley!