Today's Tarot Reading

Focus: Five of Swords
A change of ideas or plans becomes unavoidable. Being forced by circumstances to see things from a different angle. Destruction, waste, and loss threaten to undermine spirits, but the conditions will pass. Beware getting caught up in a negative spiral. Learn the lessons of the current setback and apply them the next time around.
Fascinating to see my current focus as being an unavoidable change. Maybe it's more the focus of staying in the flow and not letting the negativity, change or loss get me down.

Strength: Knight of Swords
It is time for the individual to be prepared for sudden changes; a new idea or vision erupts from within oneself. And the ability to move with this turbulence shows firmness, resoluteness and responsibility. Symbol of creative upheaval, usually leading to success.
My current strength is adaptation to sudden changes or erupting visions. Amazing how that fits hand-in-glove with the focus of change. Adapt. Evolve. Move on.

Challenge: Nine of Cups
Victory and success arrive as long-held dreams come true. Share the power of unconditional love, the benediction, Great Mother in all Her aspects. New and stimulating friends are likely to enter your life. The psyche is rescued from the darkness of the underworld with inner commitment and loyalty, a second meeting of real marriage is possible ~ the inner and outer union.
Here's a thought: Success as a challenge. Possible because ... sometimes self-definition is wrapped up in the dream not the fulfillment of it. Looking forward to seeing what wonder and beauty I get to share!

Dreaming the World into Being

[T]he core task of the shamanist is to dream her world into being. Otherwise, she has to settle for the collective nightmare that is being dreamt by others.

~ Alberto Villoldo, Shaman

If you believed that you have the responsibility of dreaming the world into being, what would be your focus? What would you want to see in the world? How would you want to experience the world? Who would you dream into it?

Maybe it's time to believe in your power of creative dreaming!

Do you know what you are?

Rumi:

Do you know what you are?
You are a manuscript of a divine letter.
You are a mirror reflecting a noble face.
This universe is not outside of you.
Look inside yourself;
everything that you want,
you are already that.

Imagine that. A manuscript of a divine letter. What an incredible thought! I am, you are, we are a written page, a letter.... carefully chosen, divinely inspired ~ breathed into being.
Who do you suppose is the addressee of that letter? I imagine that it is me, I am the letter, the manuscript, being written as well as the one to whom the letter is addressed. That divine hand, so carefully forming those words, every line and jot of that script, finds me as well as the message to be perfect. I am humbled and exposed. My life, my plan, is an open message that another could read, study, reflect upon, as I could do the same with another's divine letter. These are not intended to remain hidden; they are written in full light and I cannot be ashamed of or embarrassed by them. A greater Hand than mine has formed the strokes of those letters. Instead, I am humbled.

What does your divine letter say? Have you taken the time to read it?

Rocket Launcher

You sat
atop my shoulders
with all the fragility
and aplomb
of a space capsule
awaiting its moment
to rise into the sky
and I
your rocket launcher
create the fiery thrust
setting you on the trajectory
of exploration
of adventure
of your life
the distance I can go with you
is limited
your face is ever toward
the shining and shimmering
stars and moons and planets
at some point
I must let go
leaving you on your own
as I return
to the earth
the land
the home
the shrine of my life
and you become another
of the glorious lights
my eyes behold

Upon the Death of a Loved One

When someone we love dies, the grief and pain fills our eyes, our ears, our nostrils. Everything takes on a surreal quality, becoming at the same time duller in tone and sharper in relief. We feel that which we have never felt before. Even if others we love have preceded this person in death. Each death is unique; affects us with a unique sense of loss.

In the beginning, everyone around us either grieves with us or is gentle with us in our grief. Then they move back, into the middle distance, watching to see what we do next. Are we 'strong' enough to buck up and go on? Or are we of the weaker variety who continues to mourn? What is truer still is that they do not know how to deal with grief, ours which is immediate or theirs which is past or impending.  Because loss, like change, is inevitable.

The hardest part of the grief process is that it never really ends. It softens. It changes. It grows easier. It doesn't go away. We move on in spite of it and become stronger because of it.

Little things will, at some future time, remind us of the one we've lost. A flower. A particular sunset. A song. A random comment. We pick up the phone to call, only to remember that the one we want to connect with will not be there to answer. We turn the wheel of our car into a familiar street, slow to stop at a house, start to get out, only to be hit with a different face opening the door of the house and exiting without even noticing you sitting there, mouth agape. Again.

Those are the moments our humanity shows through. Our capacity to feel deeply, to weep openly and fully, to return to normal again. Only to get swept out into the sea of grief at another random moment.

When this happens, reach out. Find another person who can listen to you, raise a glass in salute to your lost loved one, quietly hold you, whatever it is in that moment that you need. Because through that too shine the moments of our humanity, our incredible opportunity to continue to live to the fullest a life that has suffered loss and learned to heal.

Life in a Garden....

I love living in a city that bursts forth each Spring... or earlier, even late February or early March... with daffodils, crocuses, grape hyacinths and a vast array of blooming trees. Today, the Rhododendron Garden was also in bloom!

Trillium. State flower of Oregon. It's an amazingly delicate and beautiful flower! This year, I've been seeing lots of them in bloom ~~ and they range in colors from white to this gorgeous purple.

What do you love to watch in bloom? How do you feel about the blossoming around you?

Who's the New Prophet?

Awoke this morning from a dream, needing a moment to adjust, to rediscover the location of my body in its waking state.

In the dreamtime, I was in a small, aboriginal village quietly observing a ritual with a group of others who were outsiders like me, perhaps anthropologists or ethnologists.
As the rite was drawing to a close, a runner arrived with news that people from the government were on their way. The villagers responded almost as one to gather their things. Our interpreter said the people were moving into the hills or mountains or woods surrounding the village. They had been expecting this.
I found myself picking up a writing implement and, as though in a trance, writing on a piece of paper. The text was not in any language I'd ever seen, yet I recognized that it was text. An elder picked up the paper, looked it over closely, then looked at me. He spoke to me; the interpreter said, "How did you know to write this?" I said I didn't; I'd just seen the writing implement, picked it up and written. I asked, did he know what it said? The elder spoke again; the interpreter said, "It says, 'Who's the new prophet?' How did you know that the ritual we were doing was to call forth the new prophet? How did you know our old one left us?" Again, I said I didn't know.
Some of my traveling companions bustled in and said it was time to go. Our things were stowed in the back of a military-style truck and we were to climb in after them. The children of the village were getting into trucks as well. They were coming with us. One young girl, about 10 years old, walked past me toward the trucks. As she did, she absently handed me a bowl. I started to place the bowl on a counter/table in front of me, then stopped. The same type of writing circled the lip of the bowl. Looking at it, I could almost read it; I understood what it meant, yet couldn't quite put it into words. The same elder took the bowl from my hand, looked at it, then asked me if I knew which child had given me that bowl. I said I did. He said, "Care for that child well because that one is the new prophet." Then he made a gesture with his hands, dismissing me, hurrying me out. He handed me the bowl as I left. I climbed into a truck, pulled up by the girl who was her people's new prophet.

Who is the New Prophet in your life? What are you called to do to care for that One?