Oxygen
So long spent
encased in ice
the dark cold
a cling
against flesh
against soul
and yet
the thaw comes
in small increments
and through
frozen embrace
a small tendril
just a tip
finds fresh air
and breathes deep
Morning Bonus Read – Monthly Key Spread
Key to Your Heart: What will Guide you to make decisions that are aligned with your heart and your truths this month?
Lily – Maturity. Make sure that you are thinking through your decisions and not just leaving things up to chance or personal whims. Be especially thoughtful, responsible, and mature in considering what you need to do and how you need to go about doing it this month.
Anchor: What will ground you in the face of anxiety, stress, overwhelm, and existential dread in general?
Clover – Luck and optimism. It’s far too easy to let your worries and fears sneak in and start screwing with you, but keep in mind that just because you worry about something doesn’t make it into reality. By leaning into a bit of faith concerning luck and encouraging yourself to keep an optimistic mindset, you can circumvent fears and keep them from becoming self fulfilling prophesy.
Star Wand: What accelerates your magic, creativity, and manifestation powers?
Tree – Spiritual connections and longevity of practice. Lean into the things that work for you spiritually and reconnect with your path and practice. When you are more deeply connected to your spiritual path and your practice, your magic, creativity, and manifestation powers flourish. Throughout this month, as you pull out of the pit of your depression and rediscover your equilibrium, it is important to make sure you connect back into your path and practice instead of setting these things on the back burner.
Blessings from the Stars: The Universe has got your back – how will you be supported this month?
House – You are blessed with the security and stability of a home, and roof, and support of those that live there with you. In the chaos that the world can sometimes throw your way, this is where you need to return to recover and retreat to find peace.
One Trick Up Your Sleeve: A life saving idea or inspiration for any unexpected challenge or difficult moments?
Stars – Again we find the advice is to lean into your optimism and allow hope to thrive. Allow moments of inspiration and intuition to help guide you, and keep your perspective uplifted and bright as you work through challenges and difficulties. Positivity is your friend this month, so lean into it and let it help you get through these moments.
Emergence Pt 1: What is emerging within you / within your reality right now?
Rider – As you climb further up the walls of depression’s pit and find the light, vitality and a renewed energy will continue to grow within you. You will see the light more clearly, feel it more distinctly, and be able to take from it what’s needed to rekindle your passions toward your purpose.
Emergence Pt 2: What are you expanding towards?
Coffin – There is a warning here that without the armament of positivity and optimism you risk moving in the wrong direction and sliding back toward depression and negativity. You have a chance to adjust this trajectory, but it will take connecting to the elements mentioned above that include a conscious effort towards optimism, a reconnection with your spiritual path and practices, and allowing hope to have a place within your life and outlook while grounding yourself in measured and mature decision making practices.
DECK USED: LITTLE LULU’S LUCKY LENORMAND
Even the Strongest Pace Themselves
Today’s meditation was skipped as the girls just would NOT let me have some time alone to get it done. I may try to do a ten minute shortie before bed though.
Today’s draw is the King of Pentacles, which is a representation of a projective alpha energy, personality, or person in the area of one’s finances, resources, home life, health, manifestations, and the physical world. This often translates into themes about taking charge of one’s finances, responsibilities that come with wealth, and stepping in as the head of the household.
What really stands out to me in the imagery of this card today is the grapes and the skulls. It’s not surprising that the card would contain thriving grapes winding their way through the imagery as this card is a strong indication of growth, maturity, and abundance. The skulls were a bit more of a surprise though, and together they give the impression of hardass ruthlessness to me. The whole “my way or the highway, or heads will roll” sort of thing.
When combined with the Thera-Pets card for today, the message that I find in these cards is that sometimes you have to straighten your spine and take control even when, perhaps, it isn’t what you’d prefer to do. In those times, it’s still okay to do your best, but not over tax and overwhelm yourself to the breaking point. Even leaders need to breath and even the strongest authorities can’t wring blood from a stone.
Do what you can, and it will be enough. The only authority you have to impress is yourself. So lower your expectations to a realistic level and interject a bit more understanding into that push for more.
DECK USED: LAZY CROW TAROT AND THERA-PETS EMOTIONAL SUPPORT ANIMAL CARDS
The Marching Into Darkness Tarot Challenge Prompt
Question: How do I allow the negative thoughts or words of others to affect me? How might I change my reactions to that?
How do I allow the negative thoughts of others to affect me?
Eight of Pentacles
The Eight of Pentacles here is a reminder that you have been working with this particular issue with your therapist ever since your face was scarred. You are not psychic and cannot read minds, thus the issue here is “mind reading” of the psychotherapy variety. When you were first scarred, you did a great deal of this, interjecting your feelings about how you felt concerning your appearance into what you believed others thought of you when they saw your face. After many years of working with your therapist on this issue, it is no longer a huge issue. You know how to deal with it when it rises up, and have become an “old hand” in this area at making sure that you do not assume what others are thinking about you, often by asking outright when needed.
How do I allow the negative words of others to affect me?
Five of Cups atop The Emperor
This, unlike perceived thoughts, is something more solid and can affect you in a negative way when you let it. The key words there (as indicated by the Emperor) are “when you let it”. Sometimes people’s negative words don’t affect you at all, at other times they do. This is about how strong and in control of yourself that you feel in the moment, but has nothing to do with them at all. When you are feeling vulnerable, people’s negative words can affect you intensely and cause hurt feelings, melancholy, and dissatisfaction. When you are feeling strong, on the other hand, they don’t affect you at all other than in an analytical “examination of if there’s truly an issue” sort of way.
How can I adjust my reactions to something more healthy?
Death atop Two of Pentacles
The horses here in these two cards combined with the mutual direction they face indicate movement forward into the future. The death card is a reminder that all things change with time, whereas the Two of Pentacles beneath it indicate that you have the ability to control certain aspects of your life throughout the process of those slow shifting changes and direct your energy how you wish. The message here is to “keep on keeping on” and allow the feelings stirred up from negative words to slide off into the past as you continue forward into the future. Leave them behind and keep going, as it is not their judgements you need to worry about.
DECK USED: PAULINA TAROT
#DiscordTarotolicsMar2021 Challenge Prompt
Philosophical Question: Is patience and inherent virtue, or is it learned behavior?
Reading Summary: Patience is used in order to get what we want (Knight of Cups), seize control of our lives (The Chariot), or wait out the impetuousness of others (Five of Wands).
Take Away: Patience is not something we are born with but something we learn. It is a method of behavior that is learned in order to mold the world around us into something more in line with what we want out of life. Some learn through experience that being brash and loud and impatient gives them what they desire.
Others learn that patience has the rewards they want without the need for conflict and chaos. This is something learned through experience and observation of others. Thus, patience is not something we are born with, but is learned behavior.
DECK USED: LAZY CROW TAROT
I dusted off the coffee table, which is much more of an endeavor than you might think because my coffee table is about the size of a small dining room table and it’s filled with decks and jewelry making supplies as well as an adhesive workstation, etc. So there’s a lot of organizing and shuffling stuff around involved in the process. The dust there has been bugging me for a while tho, and no one else will touch it because they fear relocating something I need and then won’t be able to find when I need it.
Gideon’s Challenge
The Sentinels
Among skeletons
they stand
proud and strong
full and weighted
by wet fluff
impervious
to the chill
Fenced in
but lush
they are
sentinals
in a world gone
baren
and cold
