As I turned over the card for this week's reading, I was gratified to see the Nine of Cups revealed. After all, this week we celebrate Lammas, also known as Lughnasadh, the sabbat celebrating the grain harvest, and the Nine of Cups is the card of the bountiful table.
Imagine my surprise when I noticed that on this exact same time last year I drew this exact same card. What I had to say still applies on this most welcoming and nurturing eve, so I'm sharing it again. The Wheel turns and returns. Blessed be the Wheel.
And blessed be your creative endeavors this Lammas Day.
☀
Today
the Wheel of the Year turns, ushering in the Gaelic feast day of
Lughnasadh, the first of the mid- to late-summer harvest festivals
celebrated through Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man. Also known as
Lammas, or "loaf-mass," in English-speaking countries, this holiday is a
celebration of the first wheat harvest, and all the goodness that
derives from that grain, especially bread.
Bread
is more than physical sustenance—it is also a symbol of our connection
to the cycles of life, and to each other. It is no coincidence that the
word "companion" come from the Old French compaignon, literally "one who shares bread" (the Latin com which means "together" and panis which means "bread").
I
was thinking about these themes when I turned over the card for this
week's reading, so I was not a bit surprised to see the Nine of Cups
shining there. What a bountiful card this is, and what an appropriate
day for it to grace our presence. It does come with one warning,
though—in abundance, we must also be generous. This card is often called
the "wish" card, but as those old stories about genies illustrate, we
must be careful what we wish for. We must never confuse abundance with a
static state, a have or have-not duality. Generosity is an energy, less
about the bread than the active breaking of it.
This
week, ponder the nature of your resources both creative and otherwise.
Who do you break bread with, both literally and figuratively? Who shares
the abundance of your table? Who invites you to share in theirs? Think
about these people this week, both past and present. Connect to them in
your thoughts, and if possible, in your words. Perhaps even bake some
actual, honest-to-goodness bread to share with them, a tangible symbol
of your gratitude for their presence in your life. Here is a very
simple, and very good, recipe. Don't let your resources stagnate with you.
For
this is the truth all creative folk understand—we are not islands unto
ourselves. Our art connects us to each other, and to the Universe. Not a
word we write exists in isolation for we are using the same ancient
tools—in the case of us English speakers, twenty-six of them—that have
been used for thousands of years. We are artisans and architects,
keepers of a sacred well, tenders of an old old fire. When we sit down
to the page, we are always in good company. And as such, we should
always be grateful. We should always raise our metaphorical cups in
salute.
Have a blessed Loaf Day! May it be fruitful now and throughout your harvest season!
I am late getting to this week's reading again. This time it wasn't illness that got me behind schedule—it was The Tower.
I've written about this card before (you can read that here if you wish). Sometimes the Tower represents a singular event, one of enormity and destruction, one that requires you to sink or swim. This is its classical meaning. But sometimes—as in my previous weekend—the Tower falls brick by brick, like shrapnel. During such Tower times, you may feel as if the Fates are aligned against you, that everything you touch either falls apart or clamps down on you like a booby trap.
Such was my weekend.
I was at a conference in Atlanta (a FANTASTIC conference, by the way—Mystic South. You should go next year, you really should). I first noticed something was off when the sink quit working in my room right in the middle of brushing my teeth. I soon learned that a water main had burst, and that our fifteen-story hotel was without running water of any kind. Which also means that the hotel was without air conditioning. In Atlanta. In July.
The hotel staff rallied. They filled the side parking lot with port-a-potties. They set up hydration stations in the lobby, passed out gallons of spring water to take to the rooms. There was even free ice cream and popsicles. The housekeeping staff used the water in the fountains to mop with. The conference staff also responded like true heroes, with patience and good humor, and the workshops continued. We talked about hoodoo and root work, writing by moon signs and working with the genii loci. It was soul nourishing and brain stimulating.
But the Tower was not done with me. On my way home, massive car crashes (including one involving a gasoline-filled tanker truck) shut down the interstate. As I tried to find alternate routes, other crashes (six in all) also shut down those highways. Plus, no matter what I tried to do with my credit card, whether buy gas or get some beef jerky, the card reader refused to cooperate.
Such a minor thing, this, but it had me almost in tears at the Walgreens. The nice lady cashier said, "Don't worry, honey, it's just a glitch." I wanted to yell and scream that no, it wasn't, that I was trapped in a Mercury retrograde all my own, a personal bad luck tornado. In the end, I made it home safely, grateful, beef jerky in hand, thanks to the help of a lot of people.
What does any of this have to do with writing? I was wondering when you'd ask.
This week, remember that Towers will rise and fall outside of your control. Sometimes they are singular catastrophes; sometimes they are a series of unwelcome calamities. Sometimes your creative work will suffer (mine surely has). But during such unfortunate events, do as Mr. Rogers suggested and look for the helpers. You'll find them. They'll have a kind word or a bottle of cool water. They'll take your hand or offer their shoulder for you to cry on. And sometimes you're the one called to be the helper. You can do it, I'm sure. Because when the bricks start falling, we find resources we didn't know we had.
This week, remember...whenever the Tower rears, dodge the mayhem as best you can. Offer help whenever possible. Accept help whenever you need to. The work will be there when the crisis is over, so don't beat yourself up if you don't make your word count. The work will wait for you. It is patient that way.
Take care of yourself. Take care of each other. It's why we're here. And I sincerely hope that your week is Tower-free.
We all know a Knight.
They are the extroverts, the enthusiasts, the seekers. They charge and brandish and yell "Tally ho!" They like speed and adventure, and while they can be somewhat reckless, they are brimming with prowess and a heady, mercurial energy, like alternating current. If you can get them to concentrate, that is. And stop tilting at innocent windmills.
Knights are court cards, which have a reputation as being tricky to figure out. I suspect their openness to various interpretations is the reason. There are sixteen court cards in a traditional tarot deck—four in each of the four suits: a King and Queen and Knight and Page—and they can personify the querent, a person in the querent's life, or the energy of the suit as expressed by their role.
In our case, the Knight of Swords has come dashing into the fray (and if there wasn't a fray before he arrived, there is guaranteed to be one after). Does he represent you, riding headlong into a battle of wits that is occupying every iota of your attention? Or is he coming at you, sword aloft, and if so, is he seeking to entangle you in his adventure or whack you down as the enemy? (this is an important question, really important). Or perhaps you are dealing not with a person but with manifestation of some particularly feisty energy, in which case, be prepared for wild times of the intellectual sort.
Only you know the nature of this dashing Knight. All I can do is tell you to be on the listen for hoofbeats this week. Get ready to ride, or get ready to run. You'll be doing one or the other for sure.
Well, hello there. This is me crawling out from under the worst migraine headache I've had in almost three decades. It was so bad I was convinced my skull was going to crack and shatter and shards of bright pain-light would escape. There was nausea, agony, weeping incomprehensibility. I couldn't make words. My world was a double-visioned, ever-tightening vise of pain.
So I didn't draw any tarot cards. I didn't do anything but crawl under blankets in a mercifully dark and cold room and let painkillers and ice do their healing work. And now I am back among the living. But I have gotten so very little work done. This always makes me uncomfortable, to be starting with a backlog, already behind schedule for the week.
And so—as I sometimes do—I pulled a card deliberately this week instead of drawing one randomly. This week is definitely a Four of Swords week.
Here is what I had to say about it last time it appeared:
That's
the advice from the Four of Swords, another one of those cards where
the nature of the suit—in this case the active masculine properties of
the Swords—is at odds with the number of the card. Fours are about stability and foundations—think squares—and as such, like to arrange all the ducks in a row.
Easy
to do when the ducks are dead. But ah, there are depths to this
particular dying, which of course isn't about physical death at all.
There is tension in this card between action and passivity, and it is
best resolved by remembering how the tarot looks at death.
And how does the tarot look at death? As transformation. Which means that this card isn't about being dead as much as it's about feeling dead, and sitting with that discomfort long enough to realize that, hey, you actually aren't dead, perhaps you're just being very very still, which can feel the same way.
When I look back at this migraine, I brought it upon myself. I pushed beyond my normal limits, which normally wouldn't have been a bad thing, but which, when coupled with events out of my control—a series of thunderstorms, especially—turned into a small horror.
The Four of Swords asks us to recuperate. It requests that we lie in effigy for a while. This may feel like wasted time, worthless seconds ticking by and nothing getting done. My Virgo soul is recoiling at the thought, even now. But as much as I like to check items off a to-do list, today I have to spend some time out of the world and in my body. My slightly-broken but rapidly healing body.
And so I will.
This week, you might be inclined to push past barriers, through limits, beyond obstacles. Which is all very well and good. But make time to retreat as well—into yourself, into a moment, into silence and solitude. Be passive and receptive, but protected and secluded as well. It may feel like death, like the walls of a coffin around you as the world pays brief respects and then moves on with its bright agenda.
But it's not death; it's simply stillness. Welcome it for a little while this week. Tomorrow and tomorrow will welcome you back to the stage. Today...rest. It will be good for your soul, I promise.
(I'm on vacation this week, so I'm sharing last year's column from this same day, which—as the stars would have it—is playing out almost exactly as it did last year, right down to the writing I'm working on and the food I'm cooking. Circles and seasons, cycles and returns. May yours—and ours, and all of us—be blessed. Thank you for being a part of my community).
It's
definitely a holiday weekend around here at Whittle Central. We're all
home, for one, and there are tasty eats being prepared (in our case
we're celebrating America by cooking a Mediterranean feast of epic
proportions). We're all engaged in various projects, but not a single
one of us feels obliged to crack down on our official to-do lists. So no
engineering, no opening the college history book, and in my case, not a
single bit of PR or promo work or (ack) bookkeeping.
Writing
itself? Oh sure, I'll be doing some of that. But it will be purely for
the joy of it today, not to make a word count. Maybe I'll treat my
characters to a fireworks show and see what other kinds of fireworks
might happen. Or maybe I'll let them have a dinner date that doesn't
involve a criminal investigation. Regardless, it will be a just-for-fun
scene that has no place in the plot-driven mystery novels they inhabit,
but that I enjoy writing so very much.
That's
the lesson I'm taking from the Ten of Cups, which is a card of
well-earned joy. Tens are cards of culmination, and the Cups are the
suit of emotions (and how we order and experience them) so a little
celebration feels in order. For me, that means I'll be including my
fictional people in my activities, but more importantly, I'm making time
for my flesh and blood people. The Fourth of July is called
Independence Day, but in the middle of all the red, white, and blue, I
think what we're truly celebrating is our connection to each other. It
takes an us to make a USA. And I have some fine people to call mine.
This
week, honor your creative spirit by being grateful for all the joy that
it has brought into your life. And be especially grateful for all the
people who have helped you along the way -- your family, your friends,
your creative tribe. Every hand that has taken yours in encouragement or
assistance or camaraderie. All these shared moments are culminating in
the right here/right now of who you are. Which is not where you were
when you started this creative journey, I am willing to bet.
Happy 4th of July! May it herald a fantastic second half to your 2016!
