The Moon 4/20/27

The Moon

from the Anna K Tarot

Original Writing by Kathryn Ravenwood

Oh, the changeable Moon, the Queen of the Night. She sails through the sky, playing with clouds as she hides among them and then reappears, teasing us in her cosmic dance. Her cycle of change daily progresses her from being dark and maybe not even visible, to revealing more of her body each night, her light slowly increasing until she is finally fully exposed. Then, she pulls the veils of darkness slowly back around her until she is again hidden. All the time, she allows us, if we look, to see the form of her whole, round body cloaked in darkness, illuminated by slivers of silver light. She exposes herself so we can witness the ravages of time that she carries – the craters created by crash landings of invasive space travelers who dared to mar her beautiful surface. She is not ashamed of her imperfections and reveals her scars for all to see. With no light of her own to offer, she takes in the sun’s light, reflecting it back to us to illumine our nights and our dreams. The moon also has her dark, unexposed side. The mystery of what is hidden there is topic of endless songs, poems, and ponderings.  

 

We are so like the moon. While we navigate the cycles of our lives, we can feel hidden, exposed, vulnerable to surprise attacks, and carry plenty of scars. We sometimes forget, that as in the picture above, our wholeness is intact– we just cannot always see it. Our light is a reflection of the Source of all Light; and in our own cycles, we let that light shine from us, providing illumination and hope to others who wander in the dark. Our navigation guides are our emotions and intuition. Logic offers little use within these mysterious realms.

 

The Moon card reminds us we must allow our subconscious to come up from the depths and be illuminated, through stages and cycles of growth. In the picture above we see only the surface of a dark expanse of water. What is hidden in the depths of those waters? Monsters of the deep?  Sunken treasure to be sought and recovered?  The moon shines from above sending reflected light dancing across the surface, allowing us only the merest glimpse of what lies just below the surface. Beyond the filtered light of the moon is darkness and the unknown. The ocean is so vast and constantly changing that we could never know it all.

 

The moon controls the tides using her powerful force to entrain the oceans to her rhythms. If the oceans respond so strongly to her, how can we, also made of water, resist her? After a full tide we can walk the beach and see what has been washed up – sometimes trash, sometimes exquisite beauty. Through the cycles of our lives we have different opportunities and conditions to explore our own depths.  Life’s storms roil the waters of our subconscious, dislodging monsters, garbage, or hidden treasure. Like on a warm summer night when we go skinny-dipping, we might jump naked and vulnerable into the depths of our subconscious, ready to explore and celebrate how it holds us. Or, we might placidly slip past the peaceful surface allowing our Light to guide us in curious exploration of our own hidden reefs and grottos. Sometimes, afraid and not ready, we stand on the shore perhaps able to only slip a toe into the water and observe the ripples radiating from even such a small disturbance.

 

We are ever changing, morphing, part of cycles within cycles. More is continually revealed and even more is hidden as we progress along our own dance across cosmic time. As our awareness emerges from the dark of our subconscious and moves toward enlightenment, there is never a void.  Like any body of water, when you pull something from it there is no hole; the waters simply swirl in to fill the space. Sometimes our subconscious sends up a small message that we can’t quite grasp as it surfaces; we can only ponder on lost meanings as that message once again retreats into the depths.  Not to worry, it will eventually reappear and another chance at understanding will be within our reach.

 

May the Moon bless you on your journey, bring you light, heighten your intuition, and bring you peace.  

 

 

... Kathryn Ravenwood  04/19/17

 

The Seven of Swords

From the Prairie Tarot

Original Writing by Kathryn Ravenwood

 

Trust issues.  We all have them.  We may start relationships with friends, lovers, business and life partners open and trusting.  We look into their eyes and see their beauty, warmth, talent, and what they offer to us. We accept it at face value.  Unfortunately, people have secrets (we all do) and sometimes those secrets are the driving force behind motives and actions. There is always the risk that someone we know and trust will deceive us, sneak around or betray us. Maybe it was not the original intention or perhaps it was and the deception was there all along. We just didn’t want to see it.

 

Our relationships with one another can be our biggest teachers. We often see what we want to see, believing intentions are genuine, blindly trusting in someone. As we experience betrayal and deception we have a chance to learn about ourselves.  We start out naïve, not knowing about such behaviors and so do not recognize the threat when it appears. It happens again and we just can’t believe it did! The next time we might start to get suspicious and learn to recognize signals, but sometimes there are no signals to warn us.  We continually are learning about trust and boundaries.  We can learn to repay betrayal and sneakiness in kind (and eye for an eye) or we can learn discretion and come into our own integrity.

 

In the card above a well dressed (and probably very charming) person stands out in the open for all the camp to see. Seven swords are secreted behind the back ready to bring forward and do some damage. Like all swords of power, these swords have names: fear, shame, anger, resentment, retaliation, expectations, and greed are likely possibilities. Remember that the swords in the Tarot are about our minds, the way we think, and Truth – personal truth and discovering Cosmic Truth.  To become a  Master of the Swords we all have to experience what is not true so we learn to recognize those enemies and learn how to survive in our integrity when we must do battle with them. The swords used in the act of betrayal have to be mastered.  When, for example, fear becomes a reality with us – for any number of reasons – we learn to be afraid and we learn to draw that sword to protect ourselves.  Or, if greed is the reality, we might learn to cheat, steal and manipulate to get what we want, possibly because we learned a hard truth of not having enough. The biggest sword is sabotage – to avoid having our own ego/feelings hurt we are the ones to do the first attack so we can walk away “unscathed.”

 

But there are always scars.  The mind keeps repeating the patterns until we are carrying our own bundle of swords behind our backs. How do we break this cycle?  As we work on our self-worth, learn from our mistakes, value our integrity, we find we do not have to engage in sword fights with others. We learn to recognize the warning signs or trust our gut when a similar pattern is presented to us in a new and oh so delightful form. Instead of rushing forward with swords drawn, we stop and give some space. What feels familiar probably is. Look at it. Trust yourself. Lay down the sword of retaliation and try some compassion.  Create some space – step away from the challenge and knee-jerk response and think about it for awhile. Evaluation, discretion, and compassion are far better tools than sharp swords.

 

If you find you must indeed defend yourself – and we all have to do that at times – let your sword be one of personal truth.  If we do not engage in the fight we are far less likely to be wounded or to cause wounds.

 

You don’t have to prove yourself to anyone. Do your best. We all get seduced from time to time. Eventually we find our lives full of relationships with partners who also come from their personal integrity. This place of truth, even if mistakes are made, is a place of growth, love, and transformation.

 

What a beautiful mirror we become for one another.

 

…Kathryn Ravenwood 04/12/17