Messages in a Pack of Cards

Waxing Ice Moon (Age: 1 day)

Sign: Pisces

Weather: Seasonably cold

Snow Pack status: dusting on the ground

Drought Status: D 0 - Unusually Dry

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For the first time in a long while, I had a tarot reading done for me. The cards pretty much bluntly told me to accept all of the changes happening in my life. And they told me to stop fighting it so hard, because it is really for my own damn good. (I could elaborate, but some of the stuff is somewhat private.)

Then, last night, I had some bad dreams. In between a few weird nightmare, however, there was a dream where I saw Rose, Stargazer, and my late Aunt. The three of them were sitting together on one side of a circular table. Rose had coffee, Stargazer had tea, and my Aunt had wine. The table looked like the last sliver of the old moon before a new moon. The wood was highly polished and well aged. The thin crescent of white wood was holly. The black wood was ebony. Between them and myself was a pack of very generic looking cards. They were like the size of the largest deck I own (cards were about as long as the length of my hand and almost as wide as my hand). They had a brown back with a seven rayed white star in the center.

Rose turned over the first card and put it before me. It was not like any tarot card I am familiar with. Sure, you could say it was the 'ace oft wands' or the 'ace of swords' depending on how you wanted to view the spear. It was, however, no normal spear image. The spear was most definitely Odin's spear, Gungnir. It was in 'direct' orientation. As I looked at the spear, I saw blood begin to appear on the sharpened edges and roll down the spearhead. It dripped down the spearhead, down the haft of the spear, and then spilled over the edge of the card to form a pool of blood on the side facing me.

Stargazer turned over the next card and set it beside the first. It had a shield that was broken. It was a round buckler styled shield that was split half way down from the top to the center, where the metal boss was. The buckler was with out any device on it. But it was blood red and a band of black went around the edge. Stuck into the split at the top of the shield was a broken antler. As I looked at the card, I could hear ravens and crows calling. And I could smell mud and blood.

My Aunt turned over the third card and set it on the right of Stargazer's card. This card started off looking like a white lily, much like the Easter Lilies. Then, the blossom faded and turned brown before falling off. The leaves of the lily lengthened and turned to sword blades pointing upward. At the place where the blossom was, a star was there. It was no ordinary star though. It was more like the flash of blinding brilliance that you see when something goes nova.

The three of them then set their hands on the deck. Rose said to me "You draw the next card." Stargazer said, "Remember where you are going and where you come from." And my Aunt said, "Remember we are with you." As I reached forward to the deck, I heard a screaming noise. It was this strange cross between something bestial, something avian, and something human, along with elements of rending metal.

I heard a voice behind me say quietly, "Be not afraid. I am with you." Then I could smell the scents of forge fire and deep forest. As I turned the fourth card, that screaming noise became even more tortured. I saw natural disasters of all shapes happening in that card all at the same time. It was visual cacophony. The last thing I saw, however, was a man dressed in black standing behind someone who had light shone on him. The man in black was standing with his back to me, as was the person who was in the light (and a royal blue throne, with out gilding). The man's hair was cut short and he was standing at something like parade rest. His hair color was dark, but I couldn't tell for certain. He held an unsheathed dagger behind his back.

Somehow, I knew that THIS was our enemy.

Then I had another nightmare about shoveling snakes with a snow shovel. (It was super weird. When I woke up, I was going 'what the actual fuck?)

What am I doing again?

Waxing Hunter's Moon (Age: 9 Days)

Sign: Aries

Weather: Chill, partly cloudy skies

snow forecasted for pm

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It has been a while since I've written in here. NaNoWriMo has been partly why and the fact that I just don't know where to begin is the other reason. There has been a lot on my plate with working with the gods and the various spirits around me. Mostly, that work has been 'shadow' work within myself. Look back on everything, I can see some spiritual measure behind why I got sick last week. I was falling into the bad habit of overextending myself again. I kept getting told to slow down and rest. I was stubborn and didn't listen. Then I found myself sick in bed for most of last weekend.

Freyr has been somewhat quiet of late. I'm not too surprised because in many ways this is his 'off' season in my part of the world. He also has made it clear in no uncertain terms that he is participating in the Wild Hunt this year. (To be honest, the couple of times where I saw his hunting party in action, I was both mesmerized and intimidated. The fierce joy in his hunting and taking on difficult quarry took me by surprised. Somehow, I forgotten that he is more than a theoretical warrior deity. I'll get into a little more detail about one of those moments a little later. Probably in another post.) The times where I have been with him and he is talkative, the discussions have been somewhat hard for me.

He has become very direct in challenging me not to deny myself joy. Considering that this is something I've been struggling with for a long while and when I get stressed out, it is the first thing I drop, I really am not surprised. The conversations have moved from encouragement to take time for little pleasures in my day and sweetness to a combination of assertive challenging of my bad habit of self denial and a.. Well, it is hard to describe. While Loki and I have some D/s stuff between us (that I didn't expect but looking at it all it makes sense now), there was never anything like that between Freyr and I. Now, there's something that hits those mental buttons in an entirely different way with Freyr and I'm somewhat scrambling to figure out what I'm supposed to do. 

While Loki will be the right bastard that I have always found alluring, Freyr is decidedly taking a different approach. It leaves me feeling like he's hunting me. This game of cat and mouse is very different from the games between Loki and I. And where Loki will basically grab a hold of me and make me look at something, Freyr has been doing this combination of chasing me in the direction I should be moving and cornering me and making me look at things. It is very disconcerting and has left me in a rather confused and twitterpated state. And it is becoming clear that this is what response he is seeking right now. I have a feeling that Loki's spending some time over the last few months pushing my mental buttons has shown Freyr something about what makes me tick.

On one hand, I am finding myself beside myself with delighted anticipation. On the other, I am reeling with shock and struggling with the urge to run and hide. Which doesn't work so well with gods. You may run but hiding never works. And they'll just let you run yourself tired. Last weekend was something of a manifestation of running myself tired, I think. Because while I was half delirious, Freyr was very present and made use of my rather glib state to have a conversation with me about my problem with keeping outmoded and harmful mental patterns in play.

Loki's been pushing my kink buttons pretty hard. This has lead to some awkward moments. Finding yourself getting hot and bothered over an idea when you're in the middle of something that is entirely different and really usually isn't connected with sex... it can be a bit uncomfortable. Especially when you are attempting to do something like pay bills and you need to focus on doing math to make sure everything is coming out properly. At the same time, however, Loki's effort to have me associate something pleasurable with doing stuff that usually makes me super anxious seems to be working. It is somewhat bewildering. But, again, there is the concerted push to make me realize stuff like sex is not a bad thing and that pleasure is ok/safe/fun. Loki has also been very ... amused with how I've basically gone 'eep' and stare like a deer in headlights when Freyr starts pushing my buttons. He's declared it adorable.

I usually would fire back some sassy comment about how I'm not adorable, but my smart ass comments have been falling flat as Loki has been deciding to be ... amused with it rather than annoyed. It's been fairly disconcerting to realize that my sass has moved from 'teehee, I'm being a pest.' to 'I'm writing checks that my ass is going to have to deliver on.' I suppose you could say that we've gone to the next level with these games, I have no idea. All I know is that Loki plays the mindfuckery game like no ones business and he's become more aggressive about it as I have gotten more comfortable with this thing between him and I. At one point, I was having a bad day and I demanded to know what exactly was his game. He gave a very... sexually charged laugh and said, "You need someone to push you. I'm here to help." It cured my bad mood. At the same time, a part of me quietly went 'Oh shit!' and I found myself questioning what the fuck I was thinking about all of this.

And then there is Freyja. Oh boy has that been difficult for me. I think I'm making progress. I've been struggling with what she's been giving me to work on. I have been genuinely putting effort and doing my best to swallow my anxiety to push forward. At the same time, she has been adapting the tasks she gives me to work around my difficulties. A part of me keeps insisting that I'm not 'good enough' to accomplish the stuff she is giving me to do. I've been doing my best to gag, hogtie, and throw that part into a dark hole. Another part of me looks at myself and goes 'Why the fuck can't I do XYZ? It's simple. Why can't I do it?' A lot of what Freyja has me working on aligns with the stuff that my therapist has me working on. I don't think that is a coincidence either. I'm stumbling my way forward but it feels like I'm trying to walk when I'm so weak I can hardly crawl. And getting angry is not working to push me through it. Instead, I have to go in the opposite direction and that's been a struggle for me.

There's been some other stuff going on, but I'm going to put that in a separate post. Because it's kinda weird enough to take up its own slot. I will simply say that astral sex has consequences.

Over the last week, I have found myself interacting a lot with the dead. I do it a fair amount to begin with. But there was a bump in traffic around Tuesday. I don't know if it is connected to the stuff that has happened with a lot of mass deaths over the last two weeks. All I know is that I went from having one or two spirits of the deceased showing up to get, well, for the lack of a better description, directions to their destination, to I had about ten show up all at once. (No, they were not all French or any of the people who died in the other incidents. Three were cancer victims. One was a car accident victim, who was very disoriented and had no idea how they wound up in my neck of the woods. Four were domestic abuse victims. And one was somebody who passed on from a heart attack. They all were headed to the same spiritual 'place' but as one described it, they got lost on a detour.) The other days were similar incidents.

I have also found that my Disir have been more vocal of late. They are all doing what they could to encourage and help me with the work I've been doing for Freyja. It was very... confusing to have my Disir helping me to have conversations with different aspects of myself. But, I was ... effective. They have also been active in my dreams. Again, the general emphasis has been on helping me resolve my issues with letting myself be happy and enjoy things. Oddly, or perhaps not so odd, I have been finding myself making a lot of progress through dream work. I have also been having more lucid dreams over the last two weeks.

Contemplations and a compilation

Waning Strawberry Moon (18 days old)
Moon Sign: Aquarius
Weather: Mildly humid, seasonably warm, fair skies with light haze
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I have been busy with my garden and my children recently. The strawberry plants are getting berries on them. My oregano is growing like crazy and the new pot of thyme that my MiL got me is doing so too. I keep checking on my tomatoes and my pepper plant. I get nervous that they're going to be attacked by aphids or something. Every day, just about, I have been out among my plants. If I'm not watering them, then I'm pulling weeds or just checking them over to make sure they're in good health.

They're like another set of children, to be honest. Speaking of children, my boys are growing as fast as the plants. My eldest is in preschool and they asked me if there were any special family traditions or religious observances I wanted them to keep in mind. I was thrown for an absolute loop when they asked me that. I honestly don't know how to answer that question. A part of me says that it would be wrong to bring up our religion even as another part of me says this is a perfect opportunity to educate the general public about witchcraft.

To say the least, I've been giving it a lot of thought and prayer. I may even do some divination on this matter and talk to a few other witches. At the moment, I think I would have really loved to have Stargazer's and Rose's thoughts on this topic. They, however, are not about me at the moment but elsewhere on the Otherside. You can't exactly pick up the phone and leave a voice mail for the dead to call you back. It generally doesn't seem to work like that. They come and go as they do and on their own sense of time.

And then there is the other things I have been busy with. I've been writing articles about various facets of Wicca for the novice witch. My goal is to take the knowledge that I've learned and put it out in easily understood bites this way the young witches and seekers out there have at least one good source of information. Below is what I have done so far.

Wicca 101
Ancient Myths & Modern Man

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part3

Spiritual Self-Defense & Protection

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4

Wicca 201
Divination

As I write more articles, I'll post links to them on here.

Waxing Mourning Moon & Memories

Moon: Waxing Mourning Moon
Sign: Aquarius
Weather: Unseasonably mild, high thin clouds
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I don't know why I did it but I looked at her blog. A part of my heart broke as I looked and read. It was as though I could hear her voice again as it sounded in life, not that strange whisper of clairaudience that I hear now when she visits me. I looked at it and I wanted to cry.

I miss her so much. So many words left unsaid. So many things that I wanted to share with her but it just doesn't work well now that she is no longer here walking the green earth with me. Oh, I suppose I could tell her everything I wanted to say but I can't ever feel her arms around me, see her smile, or listen to her laugh with that husky, rich laugh that she has after she's drunk a bit too much coffee and snuck a cigarette or two.

They say that we have soul mates and kindred spirits. I believe she was one of mine. I believe that she was a long lost soul sister of mine whom I wish I had met long before she came into life a few years ago. I cherish the memory of her laugh and everything about her. I'm struggling to live with the courage that she thought I had. It's so hard when you realize that everything about a friend is gone except for the echo of their life.

That spark, that essence of them is not here anymore. It's across the veil. And as close as they can come to us, they can never fully reach us except with heroic effort and some cost to them. So, I sit here and I mourn. I struggle with tears that refuse to be shed and this lost, confused sense of hope. I know we will meet again in the green fields of the Otherworld. We'll laugh and talk of my son and our husbands. But right now, I just want to weep because I can't hear her voice.

And the pain of her bodily absence from my life deadens my ear and senses to her presence on the otherside. Though I'm sure she knows I am there and grieves for me even as I grieve for her, as she always seemed to know my pain even though we didn't know each other for very long on this earth.