Journey in 78 Steps

Daily Draw: Ace of Coins

my description:

A left hand reaches upward from clouds that are at the bottom of the card holding a large gold coin decorated with a five-petalled flower.  There are letters along the outside of the flower - I'm not sure I can read them all... they look like A, T, E, R, E (eater? terea? hmm...).  There is a pale grey ribbon loosely wrapped around the arm, labeled "Terra" and what looks like a zero with a slash in the middle of it.  Sheaves of wheat are also wrapped in the ribbon, and coins are raining down from the sky.

The sky itself is centered by the elemental symbol for Earth, in a calm blue shade and blue rays are coming out of it, covering the entire backgrop of the card.

The Ace of Coins as an earthy, material gift being presented is clear here, though the clouds and the blueness of the background make me think that this is earthy opportunity that needs to be thoughtfully applied.

There've been a couple Ace of Coins experiences today - my daughter, whose car got hit the other day while it was in a parking lot, recieved a check for its repair today from the other person's insurance company.. they were only out yesterday morning to inspect the damage, so this was an incredibly swift resolution.  The company also provided a rental while the car is being repaired, and throughout have been swift, polite and thorough.  Because her boyfriend works on cars and the repair is only requiring a replaced bumper and headlamp, she should have a decent amount of money left over from the check.

The other Ace of Coins experience shows a bit of the less favorable side of Ace energy and how it works for the positive even when it isn't experienced entirely positively.  When I went out last week to see the doctor and get my meds, I was put back on methotrexate, which is taken once a week.  And I've been on it long enough to know for sure it has a positive impact on reducing flaring - but I'd forgotten until I took it this morning how harsh it was and how long it took me to get used to it.  It's recommended you take it on a day when you've got nothing important going on, because you *will* feel like crap all day.

And I am.. my little pills that look like this coin... these little things that are vital to my health, come with a price.  To take this opportunity, I'm going to need to expect to not feel well once a week, and hope it doesn't take me so long this time to get used to it.

I'm ok with that and it's good to remember that opportunity doesn't come without cost, whether it's an upset stomach or banged up car.  The universe does have gifts to offer, but it's rare that they come with no strings attached.

Daily Draw: 4 of Cups

description:

a blonde woman in a plain blue dress is seated on a chair, her right hand propping up her head - she looks very sad or painfully bored, her eyes glancing off to the right and down, where an empty silver cup is overturned on the grass. On her left is a discarded book, open and face down on the grass.

The landscape around her shows a large hedge maze and stone walkways on the other side of a small river or creek. There are four golden cups hanging in the air in a row.

What strikes me with this card is that there is nothing that readily seems to be wrong - the woman is not in distress from her environment and has both information (the book) and emotional resources (the cup) at hand, though she's laid them down and is ignoring them.  The maze behind her looks to me like a pretty, orderly life - perhaps with surprises, since it's a maze.. or some puzzles to solve, but nothing traumatic, and challenging enough that there is little reason to be so bored by it all. Perhaps it's all too orderly... too easy and safe?

Her blue gown.. plain - no surprises here - say that this is emotional ennui, not externally created trauma or even the sort of unhappiness that comes from thwarted desires - it's just plain disatisfaction with what she has with little motivation to change it other than to sit and stew.

Now, I've had a good day today - no major victories, but I was quite content to have a low key day.  But I have found myself in a string of conversations with people who all seem to have a collective case of the doldrums, and I recognized myself in some of what they had to say - there is a tendency sometimes to lose interest in what I have, and then wonder why nothing more interesting shows up.

I want to watch that.. not giving due regard to what one has seems worse than having nothing - you go acting like a spoiled brat about what the universe is giving you and you just might find it regifted to someone more appreciative.

Daily Draw: XVII - The Star

Description:
A nude woman with kneelength brown hair, worn loose, stands next to a creek.  With her left hand, held  at the level of her heart, she pours water from a pitcher onto the grass at her feet.  With her right hand, held at hip level, she pours water from another pitcher into the creek. The pitchers are yam shaped (or possibly womb shaped?)  The woman's eyes are open but she seems to be looking within more than at externals.

A tree grows behind her next to the water, and there is a red bird (a phoenix, I think) in the tree, flapping its wings.  Behind her on the other side is a high rocky mountain. 

Over the woman's head, like a halo, is a star surrounded by yellow light.  Concentric circles of six-pointed stars shoot out from this main star - eight stars in the inner circle and six in the outer circle.

The woman in this card looks both vulnerable and strong - there is something about her loose hair and body stance that is very touching to me, and yet her face is calm and looks inward or beyond what she can see, and it doesn't matter... there is trust here.  The fiery phoenix speaks of rising up from the ashes... the hope of the Star doesn't require that a situation look hopeful... hope comes from knowing that new life and possibility comes from even seemingly hopeless situations (but I think it's key that it is new life that is possible... hoping for things to go back to the way they were isn't always well founded).  The mountains show both challenge and, for me, mental solidity - this isn't pie in the sky wishing... it is a well grounded faith in the essential goodness of the future.

The woman pours her water out on both solid ground, and back into the flowing source of that water... if this is faith, it is faith that is connected to spirit and to practicality, not favoring one over the other.

A friend of mine has been exploring the UUA and sharing with me some of what he's learned. I'm not convinced I need (or want) communal religion, but the conversation has led me to do some thinking about spirituality within a religious framework, and I will admit that UU...especially as it links to pagan ideas through CUUPS has some appeal for me.  Whether I pursue it or not, though, I think it is a good thing every so often to give some attention to just where our hope lies... what is our relationship to optimism about those things that aren't clearly visible?

For me this sort of hope - whether it's rooted in religion or not - is necessary to being able to envision better than what we have or are now.  In absent of it, I don't know how anyone can stir up the bravery to make any positive changes in their own life or in the world.  Being optimistic does come with vulnerable... what we let ourselves be hopeful about ... be invested in.. can disappoint us.  But I'd rather have my hopes disappointed now and then in spite of reaching for them, than to live a life never letting myself hope for anything and not being disappointed by the nothing that results.

(No AC repair guy but it's cooler...and the plumber has come back to start repairs and replace my sink faucet.)

Daily Draw: 5 of Coins

The 5 of Coins shows an elderly beggar crossing the street, a begging bowl in hand.  Huddled at his feet is a child, with another beggar - possibly a woman - sitting nearby, a bowl in her lap.  The streets are cobblestones and there are puddles near the curb.  To either side are buildings - one with chimney smoke rise and the other with a shop sign in front and three well dressed people are seen from behind - ignoring us and the beggars.  The sun is setting below the walls at the end of the street, casting a rosy glow on the otherwise grey scene.

Five coins are suspended overhead alone with four leaves dividing them into quadrants with the extra coin in the center.

In this version of the card, that fact that help is available but electing not to help is made very plain.  The card encourages thinking not only of the subject's lack... but of the ways in which the subject may be ignoring the lack of those around them.  It's a sad picture of lack in the middle of a relatively abundant society and the class distinctions here are poignantly illustrated.

Today, I'm the beggar - the blessed AC I praised yesterday stopped working yesterday afternoon as the heat and humidity climbed into the upper 90s, and just as it went with trying to get a plumber over, my landlady is both very slow to respond to my calls for help, but can't give me even a vague idea of when someone might be over to fix it. 

I sent the kids over to friends and encouraged them to stay away as much as possible, while I melted (and continue to melt), hoping perhaps she'd get someone over today. No such luck.

Humidity causes flares and I feel sick, but other than jumping into a cool shower when I can't take anymore (something I've done a couple times today), there is nothing to do but hold out my beggar's bowl and hope that she realizes this isn't a trivial request. Fun.

Deck of the Week: Medieval Enchantment: Nigel Jackson Tarot

Switching decks this week to Nigel Jackson's Medieval Enchantment Tarot.  This is one of my favorites, though there is still a lot I haven't yet fully gleaned from it.  Jackson created interesting and gorgeous watercolor paintings for each of the cards, which are based on the RWS system but not limited by it - many of the images draw from older Tarot systems or create entirely new imagery to symbolize the card, and this is one of the decks that flips the elements of Swords and Wands so that Swords are Fire and Wands are Air.

I frequently find myself truly loving the symbolism of the cards, checking the LWB and then hating the keywords applied to the cards, so I mostly ignore the book altogether.  Even if I'm not in agreement with the author about inherent positive or negative traits of the cards, these read beautifully for me.

Stalked by Mother Nature

Wotta week.  Last night, my friend M and I made it back from what turned out to be a very difficult trip to DC.  I'm not sure how much notice the weather news got outside of the DC area, but it was baad.

(I drew a trio of cards and am laughing at how it tells the tale - I can laugh now that it's done!)

On Wednesday, M and I left for what should have been a 4.5 hour drive - I had a doctor's appointment out there on Thursday, so the plan was to head out on Wednesday, then M would drop me off at the hospital on Thursday while he went to work, pick me up after and on Friday I'd hang at his house and we'd head back home here on Saturday. 

The 6 of Swords describes the purpose of the trip - to get back on a medication and care program that would ease up some of the pain and loss of functionality I've had the last few months.  Good plan, eh?  Here we see Orestes making a  trip toward peace... should've been smooth sailing and the result of course was to secure  a calmer future.

Unfortunately, the drive took more than 8 hours and it was rainy the entire way - and it turns out we were driving in the wake of a major storm that began in the Ohio Valley, blew through WV (and overtook us in Frostburg, where it dumped a firehose-worth of rain on us when we'd stopped to get something to eat), and went on to make mincemeat out of DC's commuter traffic.  By the time we made it to the area, traffic was at a total standstill, street lights all over the region were out, and it took us as long to crawl around the loop as it did to get there from my front door.

Turns out, we didn't even realize the half of it.  When we got to M's house, a tree (a very healthy, old, vibrant tree) had been torn up by its roots and was laying across the street (fortunately hitting no one's house or car), right on top of the power lines - no power to the neighborhood, of course.  We were tired, wet and hungry, so we dropped off our stuff and went to look for food - figuring we'd drive til we found somewhere with lights on and then pick a restaurant.

Off we went and found an area that looked lit up and normal, flipped on the radio and heard "...immediately take shelter. If you do not have a basement, get into the bathtub.  Again, if you are in the (exact area where we were), take shelter IMMEDIATELY - this is a fast moving tornado and will he hitting in the next couple of minutes."

ERK!  With no time to think and no bathtubs in the car to take shelter in, we ducked into the parking lot next to us and decided to go into the restaurant there (hey, there were limited options), hoping not to sit near a window.  The sky was pretty freaky for the next 20 minutes or so, but no tornado, at least not where we were.

After that, the weather was over and it was just the aftermath. ("Just" she says...)  There were a quarter million people without power, downed trees everywhere and radio announcers calling what had happened before we arrived as a 'gustado' - a tornado level blast of wind that just punches through an area without the spinning action of a tornado.  And the weather for the next few days?

  Hot, hot, hot and humid to match - upper nineties for both temperature and humidity. The power company was working at breakneck speed to get power back on, but with all the downed trees it was complicated work and they're still at it now.  They called in help from multiple surrounding states and meanwhile, everyone sweated, food in refrigerators went bad, and the ever bad traffic situation in the are continued to be bad.

With no power on, there was also no coffee, and no warm water for showers (and in spite of the heat, a cold shower does my arthritis no good - and the humidity was already making me miserable enough), and on Thursday, we headed up to the hospital for what I'd already known was going to be a difficult day.  (Boredom is the real killer).

No need to go into all that - I was lugging medical records, a book to read and left with those plus a lot of meds, and braved the Metro to meet up with  M after he got off work and the heat was oppressive.

Friday, was more of the same, only at the house... no power, hot, able to read but bored (the heat was too much to really pay attention to anything 'deep' and by now it was impossible to keep drinks cool or otherwise ease the sticky hotness.  Around 4pm, the power people showed up and began working  and yay! About 3 hours later there was power again - the tree was also still across the yard, so M's got that to sort out - but power! Electricity is a beautiful thing.

Saturday, we both lazed about a bit before heading back to my area - and I was very ready to head home.  There were still a lot of areas without power, and the temperatures were over 100F in DC. But the drive back was much easier than the trip back had been.  We made a stop at M's office to pick up meds of mine he'd put in a fridge there (that was another challenge - very expensive injectables that had to be kept cool in a situation with no power!) and drove west.

And there, I was greeted with a wonderful surprise - my marvelous children, even not being in much communication with me (no power quickly meant no phone access as he has a wireless landline and the cell went dead and couldn't be recharged), they'd decided to surprise me by cleaning the house top to bottom, and had dinner waiting when we arrived. 

Home, great kids, coffee and AC and it's a beautiful day today (hot, muggy, but nearly as oppressive as it is out in DC).  And life is good.