Sun: entering into pieces (water/mutable), 7:10am - 5:59pm
Moon: full moon, virgo (earth/mutable)
Earth: a second unusually warm day in the middle of February, bright, warm sunlight, white fluffy clouds in a crystal blue sky, winds shifting the bare tree branches and playing with the wind chimes all up and down the block, the woods was restless with spring's first robins and last winter's dried, dead leaves stirring in miniature cyclones in the breeze; everything is mud and melting ice
The last few days were rough, with some discomfort and pain and general fatigue, but today has been lovely. We've opened up the windows all over the house to allow the rooms to air out with the breeze, and the place feels full of shifting life and wafting curtains again. A warm day like today does not feel very much like spring, exactly, as it's too early and it seems even the land knows tomorrow will be cold and near freezing again. The air is too dry and restless to be full spring air, though everywhere there is mud and muck and melting. Jeff and I had lunch outside in the backyard, watching the clouds pass in front of the sun one by one. He kept insisting it was a day from May, but May is more lush and green than this. Everything is still very dry and stiff, not awake like true spring but restless in its sleep. It will be waking soon.
The last few days of work have been interesting, as a new project had me hopping and worrying a bit about my "boss's boss" approving of what I was doing. Things seemed to have gone well, but to go from so little supervision to that kind of extra oversight makes me worry. I want to be thought of as a competent and hard worker — a tough task to accomplish when you work from home sometimes, I guess.
So my creativity of earlier in the week was on the wane, for a few reasons. Today was a "day off" (with only a few hours of work in the morning), as was yesterday which I spent mostly arguing with trolls online. I should know better, but it's hard to resist sometimes. This time at least I did not let it bother me so much... or, I shouldn't put it that way. "Letting" seems to have very little to do with it — but at least, the trolls remained laughable, and their insults ridiculous, enough for me to easily shrug them off. I spent some time yesterday afternoon working on some creative awen work with the Kowit poetry workbook.... but found none of the prompts for the exercise I was working on to be very helpful. Prompts like "remember a time when you were sad" or "remember a time when you felt humiliated" came up empty-handed — I could remember occasions that seemed a mix of frustrated and restlessness, but nothing much else came to mind. Jeff said I must have just been in a particular mood, and I know that sometimes I do get "blocked" or stuck in a particular emotional state when it becomes difficult for me to remember feeling any other way. That got us on to astrology again, and conversations about my moon being in my twelfth house, so that the source of my emotions were often a mystery to me but also, if I follow them willingly and trustingly, serve as my connection to Mystery and grace.
This, of course, led back to a conversation about how to work with my Saturn return, which is fast approaching. Yesterday, in my restlessness, I asked Jeff just to come up with a simple practice I could do regularly, since trying to be "creative" to come up with some practical exercises seemed too much to deal with at the time and I was coming up dry. He said he'd give it some thought, and in the meantime I will be contemplating it, too. I want to ask Brigid for her aid in this endeavor, but I'm feeling like a neglectful devotee — this past week, I completely got the day wrong for my Flamekeeping shift. Remembering that I would be Keeping during Valentine's Day, I had it in my brain that my shift began at sundown on Valentine's Day itself, but this turned out to be one sundown too late. When I realized the mistake (no thanks to my Google calendar, which has been acting wonky with my holy days sub-calendar for some reason recently), I kept my shift one day off.... but still feel as though I should have done more to make up for the lapse. If my first year of Flamekeeping was characterized by plenty of strange and happy coincidences, with my Keeping shifts falling on important dates almost every month it seemed, this year's Flamekeeping seems more like to be characterized by distraction, forgetfulness and a need on my part to be more careful and disciplined in my devotions.
After dinner yesterday, though, I did return to my computer to work on a poem inspired by the trollish bickering that I'd experienced online that day. Reimagining these accusations of being "idealistic" and naive and living in "white flower power land" (like I said — so absurd as to be laughable, almost endearing in their mischaracterizations of my view), the poem arose as a kind of affirmation that to be open to wonder is also a kind of power, and sometimes one more difficult and more risky than the power of brute force and violence. I shared the poem below, as well as on P+P (where a reader promptly tried to rebut with song lyrics — gods, I love a good old fashion bardic match!). So yesterday, after priming the pump for hours and coming up dry, it turned out I had a poem in me after all.
Today, after working several hours in the morning and lunching with Jeff outside in the sunlight, I decided to go into the woods for some meditation. During my walk, I scouted the next stone I would need to bless and consecrate for my DOTR work. I sang songs to the earth as I walked, which always helps to anchor me and center me in the work, reminding me that this is not just some casual stroll but a journey for a sacred purpose. I made my way to the stone outcropping where I usually sit, looking down over the ravine, and spent some time in meditation there, breathing and chanting the awen and grounding in the stirring bones of the earth. It's obvious that I need to return to regular meditative practice, as my mind wandered quite a bit during this time. But then, I am not a machine, not clockwork, and I do sometimes wonder if a wandering mind just isn't more natural during some times of the month. Chanting the awen, I felt centered and grounded, and when I fell back into silence, it seemed to me that my voice continued to be carried and echoed in the wind and among the trees in the woods surrounding me — just as it had that time in Ohiopyle, near the waterfall last May. I consecrated a small jar of water and, after a sip to honor the Spirit within, poured it out upon the rock as an offering to the local land. I then did the same with a jar of birdseed, as an offering to the spirits and beings of the land. Though my meditative work was perhaps not as fruitful as I might have liked, the rite itself seemed rooted and powerful enough. Anyway, we do not do these rites for ourselves alone or the way they make us feel — we do the work as real work, true action in the world, that shapes and changes the world. A gift is a gift because of intention, even if that intention is worn and frazzled at the edges because of moontides and stress. I hope the land can meet me half-way, as it has so often done before.
Diary Tarot Card:
(d) Song of the Land ............ (c) Song of my Gods
(a) Song Within
(a) Song Within - The Ten of Pentacles is a card of fulfillment and enjoyment in life, rooted and steeped in the beauty of the material world but married to the spiritual meanings and movements, often found most poignantly in art and aesthetics. As Annie Dillard writes, an artist "jammed in the pool of materials," lives also in the mind, home of forms, and in the spirit. This is a card of auspiciousness, prosperity and generosity alike as they are connected and mutually supportive in the physical world of nature and its laws of exchange and engagement. Hard work and diligence comes to fruition in poise, comfort and simple pleasures enjoyed freely, without covetousness or hedonism. A willingness to work within the forms and limits of tradition and deep, ancient wisdom also expresses itself in this card — while this may sometimes bog us down in overly stiff structure, in this card the limits and boundaries of form, tradition and discipline serve a vital purpose in shaping and cultivating liveliness and joy.
(b) Song of the World - Temperance (XIV) brings together in balance, harmony and exchange the swirling, dancing, jousting energies of masculine and feminine, earth and sky, light and dark, phoenix and dragon, yin and yang. Life comes not from the strict purity of extremes, but from this dance of tension and difference, each tempering the other — the fire in the water. This card signifies a time of respite, rest and relief — albeit only a temporary one, perhaps — after a struggle, when we have a chance to refresh ourselves, catch our breath, and ready for the next step in the journey. There is poise and a sense of stillness and quiet in this card, despite the roaring, twining energies that surround the angel of temperance where she perches. Her mind is clear and open, the connections between thought and soul and manifestation in the material world laid bare and beautiful before her soft-gazing eyes.
(c) Song of my Gods - The Seven of Cups is a card of paradox, offering many choices — almost too many to count or consider — but only some of them may lead to deeper connection with both soul and spirit, and the Song of the World. Egotism and fantasy threaten to lead us off our path and we may make wrong choices if we stay too long with our "heads in the clouds," day dreaming of wealth or fame or other such rewards. But with our gaze firmly held to those ways of true value, following wise advice of those who have come before us, we can find the path to deeper, more authentic engagement and wholeness. The siren song of this card is not all deception, but we must be careful in our choices, and allow humility — grounding in the earth — to help us choose which path we take.
(d) Song of the Land - The Chariot (VII) wrestles with the chaotic, restless forces of conflicting desires and intentions, the conscious and the unconscious aspects of ourselves. To master these tensions and ride victorious requires strength of will and receptivity to changing circumstances alike. Psychologically, this card represents the healthy development of our ego selves, that sense of self that governs our actions and navigates a smooth, sure course through sometimes murky waters or conflicting interests. This is a card of composure and confidence amidst confusion and disorder, the first assertion of the ego as a reliable center for the individual self.
Further Interpretation - The cards drawn for the Song of the World (Temperance) and the Song of the Land (The Chariot), both major arcana, also both involve the balance of energies and the dancing, push-pull of conflict and tension between opposites. Appropriate for the time of year, and for the weather and energies of this day in particular, these cards seem to reflect the moods, energies and currents of the greater world — the coming of spring, the restlessness of the wind over the bare, muddy land, the play of water over soil and warm sunlight slicing through sometimes chilly air. Both cards incorporate a kind of paradox of both stillness and chaotic movement, poise and grace as well as mess and conflict.
The Ten of Pentacles in the position of Song Within seems to indicate my recent focus on a more disciplined approach to creative writing, and my willingness to "prime the pump" even on days when I am not feeling particularly creative or inspired. It may also indicate the process of revision and craft involved in pulling together a book manuscript, a project that I have also started recently and hope to finish over the next several months. Since this card came up earlier in a reading in a position that seemed to suggest this was my best approach to the writing life and the work of my soul, I am pleased to see it showing up again here — perhaps this means that I am orienting myself in a helpful and receptive way and utilizing my self-discipline as the necessary tool that it is to help me accomplish my goals.
The card that appears in the position of Song of my Gods (Seven of Cups) is the most confusing of this reading, which is not exactly surprising given the paradoxical nature of the number seven. In previous readings, this card has seemed to warn about making wrong choices, being distracted by temptations to popularity or influence instead of remaining anchored in the work of my writing. The two figures in the card face in different directions, though both to the left (in fact, all the figures in all four cards face to the left, with the exception of a few of the animals in Temperance and The Chariot) — the woman looks up, gesturing, towards the position of the Song of the World (Temperance) card, while the man gazes down at the map he holds, in the direction of the Song Within (Ten of Pentacles) card. In the artist's interpretation, it is the male who is "grounded" and sensible enough to accomplish the couple's goals, while the female is too much distracted by temptation and fantasy. That the woman gestures towards the external "world" position while the man gazes down with steady discipline towards the "internal" position is interesting. Yet at the same time, the card that the woman points to is Temperance, a card with encouraging meaning of its own. The angle of temperance herself seems to be turned inward, deep in contemplation of the forces around her. Meanwhile, the Ten of Pentacles holds not only the prosperous queen, but the old dragon steady, perhaps even stuck, in his ways. So an orientation towards both the external and internal worlds may be necessary — the greater world may hold not only temptations and distractions, but inspiring examples and helpful guides to the navigation of these tensions and vital energies, while the inner world may run the risk of becoming too entrenched in navel-gazing and self-reference and in this way become stuck. A map may be a helpful guide, as in self-discipline, but it must be supplemented. A floating castle may be mere fantasy, but if we see such dreams realized in the world through the lives of others, perhaps we do well to ask ourselves how this is possible, and learn from the questions we ask. It seems to message of this card, then, is both discernment and balance, seeking out what is helpful to guide my choices without discounting either one or the other out of hand. Seems like the kind of advice I often get from my gods, Brigid in particular.