New Moon/New Sun/Birth Day Ritual

This goes back to March 1988 but I'd forgotten about it until I was going through some boxes of papers and found an old copy of "Weird", the newsletter we used to publish. No coincidences. So here it is, just as it appeared in "Weird, Volume 3, #1". I offer this ritual as the first blog entry I've made in a long time, to whoever reads it - feel free to adapt and use as you Will with my blessings.

(This rite was originally conceived as a new moon ritual, but could be easily adapted to Springtime usage as well as being applicable to one's birthday, or for any occasion of renewal/rebirth.)

The Circle is cast as usual, according to respective traditions. Prepare by the Middle Pillar exercise or one such as this:

Center yourself and breathe rhythmically. Picture above your head an orb of blazing white light. Recognize this as the light of your Higher Self and revel in its beauty. Next, while remembering to breathe steadily, see a ray of this white coming down into your heart on an indrawn breath and picture it turning gold there. As you breathe out, see the same ray of white light continue, flowing down to your feet and pooling there. On your next indrawn breath, pull up from this white pool a rosy-gold ray to your heart. As you exhale this breath, feel the rays combining in your heart, fiery bright and golden.  Repeat this five or six times until you feel fully charged Then say, "I am light!"

In the center of the Circle, one candle burns in the Cauldron. Next to it rests a full Cup of wine or herb tea. Slowly and thoughtfully, extinguish each of the quarter candles, then the altar candles. Sit before the Cauldron, facing northeast. Reflect.

"I am darkness. I am the movement of all things unseen. I am shadow. I am all shadows. I am free."

"No door is opened except in darkness. No light is loved without measure of night. No balance is struck without a price. No fullness is cherished without longing."

"Black, timeless, looming hours; I am the eyes of the lightless Moon. Empty, frozen, new with power, silent with understanding, the Dark Mother, the Great Sea, The Cauldron of Eternity."

Facing East: "I am the sound of the unborn winds, the music of the heartbeat yet unknown, the dance of the turning tide, the silence between breaths. I am all that is, the faraway bells of midnight skies."

Facing South: "I am the blue of flame, the invisible spark, the fire of the unseen star, the electricity of the universe, the untouchable glow of spirit. I am all that is, the twinkle of forgotten lights."

Facing West: "I am the waters of deep reflection, the womb of the ocean's birth, the eternal movement of waves and the stillness of sleeping seeds. I am all that is, the floating, timeless sea."

Facing North: "I am the caves, the stones, the hollow earth, that which waits in the eternal hills. I am all that is, forever patient, forever waiting."

Meditate for awhile on the New Moon, the Dark Mother, the dark side of the year, midnight, the barren time, etc. Then repeat the white light exercise and relight the candles one by one like so:

 To East: (relight candle) "I salute the East. I drink in the dark winds and celebrate their union with the bright, the coming year, and the songs of new voices!" (drink from Cup)

To South:  (relight candle) "I salute the South. I drink in the dark heat and celebrate its union with the light, the coming year and the glowing of new fires!" (Drink from Cup)

To West: (relight candle) "I salute the West. I drink in the dark potion and celebrate its union with the bright, the coming year and the cleansing of fresh tides!" (drink from Cup)

To North: (relight candle) "I salute the North. I drink in the dark powers and celebrate their union with the light, the coming year, and seasonal rebirth!" (drink from Cup)

Repeat the white light exercise one more time, facing the center of the Circle and the Cauldron. Then relight the altar candles.

Say: "We are the Moon and Sun at new, and wisdom follows in our wake. We are the echo heard in daylight, the point of everlasting return, the eternal, the unchanging, the pure, the naked and the free. Our mind is one, our powers are one - the unconquerable, the immortal sentry, the holy guardian angel, incorruptible and ageless as as gold, the heart of eternities. We share one flesh, we see one vision, we speak one voice, we glow with one fire and we dwell in one darkness. We dance the dance of onyx moons and empty stars.

"Welcome, all that is, within us and beyond. All that will be starts and ends in you. You are the point of everlasting return. So Mote It Be!"

(If you want to, make a wish and blow out the candles.)

Threefold thanks to Katharine Clark, my Tuatha de Danaan sister, for providing the original ritual on which this one was embroidered. 

After the Fall

The big fall down the steps, that is, which happened on the June New Moon night,  seriously wrecking my back and cracking a couple ribs. I'm lucky I didn't break my neck. Got up in the middle of the night to pee, somehow caught my big toe in the cuff of my pajama pants and went tumbling down the stairs. Funny how everything goes into slo-mo when these things occur. I counted the steps as I hit each one, somehow turning a somersault in the process, picking up speed as I went, finally landing flat on my back at the bottom with the wind knocked out of me. Not being able to breathe for a minute was more horrifying than the fall itself. I laid there and moaned for awhile, slowly and painfully getting to my feet. Johnny came running and sat down beside me, puzzled. The upshot is that the disks in my back are basically shattered to shit. If I'm on my feet for more than ten minutes at a time, the sciatica demons start dancing merrily down my spine, running mainly down through the left hip and leg to my feet, twirling their little razor sharp lightning bolts as they go.

The pajamas went out in the boxes of household items and clothing for the VietNam Vets pickup the following week, good riddance.  Otherwise, the June new moon was glorious, with Venus and Jupiter riding high in the evening sky and the backyard all a-glitter with fireflies.

What does this have to do with tarot, you may well ask? After the fall, I went into a rather despondently dreamy state for a few weeks because I had to make some changes, physically, which of course affected all levels.  I kept working with the Smith-Waite tarot, which I love dearly. In retrospect, the Pestle of the Moon wasn't such a fiasco after all. Even though I had to stop because it was giving me nightmares, and some of the connections between cards, the Yeats poem, and the images for meditation just didn't make any sense to me. Now that I look back, the nightmares were probably my own deep seated fears and bugaboos bubbling to the surface. I still don't understand a lot of what I experienced, but I believe I did the right thing by quitting. It was getting very uncomfortable. I realize that not everything in this journey will be sweetness and light. I did the best I could.

I continued using the Smith-Waite as a daily meditation guide, drawing three cards on the new moon, and one for daily meditation each day. The three cards, ostensibly past, present and future, soon revealed themselves to be: 1)new and waxing  moon; 2)full moon; and 3)waning.

Surprisingly, the July new moon reading gave me all Cups. I rarely get Cups in my personal readings. I'm not a very emotional person, tending to be rather more analytical and intellectual. Cups were overflowing all over July, though. First there was 4 cups on the new moon and waxing phases, as I came to terms with the results of my fall, feeling like a failure, disgusted with myself, refusing to see the good side of it, if indeed there was any. The whack to my back and ribs seemed to knock loose all kinds of pent-up emotions and made me question a lot of things about myself and my way of life, balancing all that with the rest of the world around me. I even questioned being vegan, which is often challenging, as those who are not vegan can probably imagine. The King of Cups was for the Full Moon, then the good old 6 of Cups.

It seemed like the 4 cups was supposed to be a "faery gift" but I missed it. There were  signposts I kept stumbing upon, drawing me to "faery", which is really where I started into my Craft. I even came across an article about Feraferia on Facebook, and felt sad somehow because it referred to Feraferia in rather condescending tones reserved for old psychedelic hippie delusion cults, the harmless (and meaningless?) kind, as if it were a relic, at best.  Among my earliest jaunts into what I consider "the Craft" was a long and happy correspondence with Feraferia which taught me a great deal about nature religion and what some might call the faery ray. These are my roots.  I can't go back there, though, all the people are now gone to the Summerlands or otherwise lost to me in space and time. 6 cups, too, should have been a gift but I just couldn't pick up on it. I was taking long naps in the daytime when I should have been pulling the weeds out of my little fairy garden. I was in a depression, washed out to sea with an unaccustomed tidal wave of emotions.

That was goodbye to Smith-Waite tarot. The daily cards were all tens or otherwise pointing to the end of a cycle. The Devil card came up twice!  It was time to cut my losses and move on.

I thought about going back to the Sacred Rose, which is a very faery deck. This idea stayed with me up until the moment I opened the drawer where I keep my decks - and I ended up taking out the Celtic Wisdom one instead. Going back through the book to refresh my memory, I found an outline for a year-long working which seemed like just what the doctor ordered. It was on Lughnasadh, which is the time of renewing vows and promises.  The working consists of meditation sequences based on the ogham trees, sabbats, and figures from Celtic myth. I started on Lughnasadh, which begins with 3 cards from the Knowledge suit (Earth/Pentacles).

One of Pentacles is the Lia Fal or Stone of Destiny. Two is Dialogue of Knowledge, which pictures the young "grass-beard" poet Nede and his mentor, the elder poet Ferchertne.  The Woman of Knowledge (Page of Pentacles)  is the third card - lo and behold, it is Airmid, the herbalist of the Tuatha de Danaan, a personage with whom I've always felt deep kinship in the sense of Anam Cara.  It is easy to listen for Airmid's voice. I touch base with her almost daily.

Synchronistically, the first day I started this meditation, I cut my forefinger by accident (or by design) which was exactly what I'd pictured doing earlier that day as I visioned myself picking the bramble branch of Muin (the ogham tree for this phase) to set on my altar.  Ok, this is the time of sacrifice, Tailtiu's funeral games and all. (Lugh's foster mother, in whose honor he started the first Lughnasadh, died of exhaustion after clearing a forest for farm lands) I decided to go out and pull up all the jagger weeds from the neglected garden along the side of my house, partially as a kind of penance, partially as an affirmative action to support my new Celtic Wisdom endeavor. That was rewarding. I was also inspired to dig out my box of colored pencils and a large sketch pad which I hadn't touched for a couple of years, and create my own drawing of The Perfecter card - which along with The Soul card, serves as guide and focus for each of the meditations in this year long cycle. The directions are to lay out the 3 meditation cards on the Perfecter card, but there isn't enough room for that. It felt good to draw with the colored pencils again, and I finished my Perfecter last night, a big achievement that helped me to feel a lot better about myself. And I have a nice large Perfecter on which to properly place the cards.

It seems like I'm on the upswing "after the fall" at this point. Still in a state of transition but no longer feeling overwhelmed by the necessity of it. I'm moving in new directions and recovering old creative outlets. Embarking on a year long committment is a big step, especially considering I abandoned the Pestle of the Moon project before finishing. At this point, the Celtic Wisdom path feels right and all the signs and omens are encouraging.

(Lady Bramble https//tadja/wordpress.com/faery-gallery)

Pestle of the Moon, Part 2 (finale)

I abandoned ship before it crashed on the rocks. Yet the working seemed to be a success because my intuitive faculties do seem sharper now. So maybe it wasn't all for nothing.

If you read the previous post in this blog, you know that on the last New Moon I started a tarot working called Pestle of the Moon, from the Katz-Goodwin book on the Smith-Waite tarot deck. It was based on the Yeats poem "Phases of the Moon".

The card I drew for the Waxing Crescent phase was 6 cups and it corresponded with "The Dream". What more pleasant card could there be for a dream, right? Wrong. It gave me nightmares on the first night. The tower-like building in the background, which I never really noticed much before, reminded me of my childhood church, so that when I went into the scene, I went back to the memories, disappointments, and all the pretty cups lined up for gifts that were never received.

The next night with 6 cups was a little better, because I was determined to avoid all thoughts of church  and focus more on the flowers, imagining their scent. My neighborhood smelled like honeysuckle, and the alehoof and wild phlox were blooming so I focused on visualizing (or whatever the olfactory equivalent is) that, which was much more pleasant. "Sigfried's Idyll" was playing on the radio just before I fell asleep, and that definitely helped but I couldn't remember any dreams.

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The next night I finally remembered in great detail the dream I had, which was set in a small town. Before the small town scenario, I was with my old friend, Lady Bridget, but I can't remember what we were doing. Then everything changed and I was seeing (but was not a part of) a row of passengers, as if on a plane or bus, who were delayed for some unknown reason. The stewardess was rudely eating a sandwich in front of everybody, offering people bites which they angrily refused.  They were all mad because of the delay. Finally someone sent a sort of courier across the street to get something that would allow the passengers to proceed on their way. As I watched, the courier looked like they were enacting a drug deal or something suspicious, in the middle of townspeople who were aimlessly milling around. They parted to allow the courier to pass though them and they all seemed to be in on the deal, whatever it was. When the courier returned, there was a sense of release - although I never did see an actual vehicle, there was just a row of seats and people in them - and I assume the trip continued as the dream ended and I woke up with a 1950's pop tune in my head and the lyrics "I just found out yesterday - the girl I love is going away..."  I couldn't make any sense out of this dream but at least I remembered it and it was accompanied by music, which was supposed to be part of the working.

Then to make matters worse, I got confused about the lunar phases, of all things, and went into a panic. It was Katz and Goodwin's fault though. The way they laid this out, each lunar phase supposedly lasted three days/nights. This obviously doesn't work out right and the number of cards pulled for the working will only fit with the lunar phases if the length of each quarter is three days/nights and then the dates of the actual New, Quarter, Full and Quarter Moon are one night apiece. It made me wonder if they actually did this meditation themselves. If they did, they would have explained it more clearly!

Next was Ten of Swords on First Quarter night, one night only, with the keyword from the Yeats poem being "adventures" or "whims".  Not a harmonious combination. While visualizing the card, I bravely tried to focus on the positive sides of it - that Tens are the end of a cycle, the death of what's no longer needed - but I kept being drawn to the wounds or holes made by the swords, the ugly strata of brown ground, blue horizon, sulferous yellow sky and the falling black cloud. My mind wandered to ask who these ten swords belonged to anyway? I almost started naming ten people to whom they might belong but stopped myself at that point.  I woke up the next morning in a terrible depression, unable to remember any dreams, but with a heavy, sad feeling that all my "adventures/whims" were dead and should be abandoned - especially this particular "adventure" of the Pestle of the Moon experiment.

Thank Goddess that card was only for one night!

Next was Knight of Swords with the keyword "Hero's Crescent". At least that combination made sense. The first night I tried to get into the card and ride with the Knight. All that happened was that I woke up with the opening bars of a violin concerto in my head. The rhythmic, striding melody was familiar but I couldn't remember the name or composer. After the second night, a chromatically down-sweeping waltz, something like Valse Triste, was with me when I woke up. By the third day, I sensed that the Knight of Swords was somehow traveling with me through my waking hours, a vague presence beside me. Someone posted the old Rainbow song, "Man of the Silver Mountain" on Facebook and as soon as I saw it and listened to it, it clicked as a theme song of the Knight of Swords, the Hero's Crescent. On the final night of this phase, just as I was falling asleep, a man's face flashed before me, sharp and foxy with a rough shadow of unshaven whiskers on his cheeks and chin and something suggesting an open helm around his head. He was looking right at me with slitted eyes that were sharp and bright and was about to say something - when suddenly I jerked awake! I had the distinct impression that the Knight of Swords was ready to tell me something and I missed it. I felt like he had gotten closer and closer through this phase until we were finally face to face. Then it was over.

That brought me to the Full Moon and the King of Pentacles, keyword "twice born, twice buried." That night I dreamt there was something horribly wrong with Ace, my cockatiel. In the dream, I uncovered him as I usually do in the morning and found that overnight his wing and tail feathers had grown extraordinarily long, and they were so heavy that they were drooping around him. It scared me so badly that I woke up. Later that day, someone posted a picture of 2 phoenixes on facebook and the feathers were exactly like what I saw on Ace in my dream. It gave me one of those classic chills of recognition.

(This is Fawkes, Dumbledore's Phoenix)

Finally I got to the Waning Gibbous phase, the Ace of Pentacles, and the keyphrase "The soul at war/frenzy". I was able to remember all the details of a very convoluted dream that involved a waiting room in a doctor's office, working on embroidery to pass the time until my friend came out of the examination room casually talking about his bleeding ulcers that were "bleeding right now" then he went on to talked about a massive sum of money that he was trying to avoid paying. Meanwhile I decided to go into the kitchen of this place (a hospital?) and see if they had a bag I could put my embroidery into so it wouldn't get dirty. The cook said sure, but first he had to crack some eggs, which he did very violently on a metal griddle, and there were bloody chicks and water and all kinds of sickening stuff which he washed down the drain. He gave me the empty egg box for my embroidery and I wasn't sure it would fit, but I just wanted to get out of there. I went back into the waiting room and out the door, and there was a crowd of children there who seemed curious about what was going on but their mother kept shooing them away, telling them they couldn't go in yet. Suddenly I was in my old house and Jay was in his recliner which he'd placed on top of a stove or a heater for some reason, and I nervously cautioned him not to let it catch fire. A woman from one of my old covens was there in the background, like she lived there. I realized I hadn't thought about her for ages. Then I woke up with the Strauss waltz "Gold and Silver" in my head.

The next day I decided to just stop. I refused to go to sleep with "the soul at war" and "frenzy" while trying to meld into the Ace of Pentacles, such a totally benign image. It was crazy. I felt much better after that, as if some great pressure had been removed. Since I stopped (on June 5) I've still been remembering my dreams more clearly than before, so I guess it did work in a way. I didn't get much out of the lines from Yeats at all, though, which mostly didn't seem to fit in with anything. It was like trying to do a jigsaw puzzle in the dark.

New Moon is coming up and I do plan to continue my tarot adventures, although I have no idea what's next. I don't think I'll attempt anything else from Katz-Goodwin, though, as much as I love the Smith-Waite deck.

The Pestle of the Moon (Tarot)

On the Taurus New Moon, I put my Sacred Rose deck back into its butterfly book-box and switched over officially to the new Smith-Waite deck, which has been under my pillow every night for a couple of weeks now. I've been pulling a "card of the day" from it ever since I got it, to help with the bonding. I feel very comfortable with this deck now, especially since it gave me all three of my so-called Life Cards - Empress, Hanged Man and The World - on three consecutive days as card of the day, in their chronological order.  That was rather astonishing.

Starting on the New Moon, I began something called "The Pestle of the Moon" which is not really a divination but more of a meditation or exercise. This was described in the Katz-Goodwin book on the Smith-Waite tarot.  The purpose is to "regenerate your intuitive abilities". It derives from W.B.Yeats' poem called Phases of the Moon where he gives attributes for the Moon's phases. Katz and Goodwin describe it as "an entirely off-book method that may or may not even register consciously as to its effect." They suggest that it be done as a meditation, for relaxation and enjoyment.  They also suggest that dreams be recorded during the Pestle of the Moon cycle, naturally.

On the New Moon, according to directions, I laid out the High Priestess and Moon cards with the High Priestess above Moon. Then 8 random cards were drawn and placed around these two, starting at the right which is New Moon, then going widdershins to Waxing Crescent, First Quarter, Waxing Gibbous, Full, Waning Gibbous, Last Quarter and Waning Crescent. Each phase lasts about three days and nights.

I found a free lunar phase app to download to my phone, yippee! Ready to go.

The meditation or exercise is simple. Take the card of the current phase and put it by the bed. Before going to sleep, glance at it and let intuition pick out one thing from it as a focus. Eyes closed, visualize the card, then open eyes and glance at it again. Repeat until the card is clearly visualized. Then while falling asleep, repeat the keyphrase of the moon phase, derived from Yeats' poem, while seeing the image growing larger. As it grows and takes you in, merge with the scene. Let the keyphrase turn into sound, a chant, or music and take you deeper into sleep and into the card's image.

The first two nights after the New Moon, I did this with the World card. The keyphrase for the New Moon is "Cradle". Two things stood out to me in the Smith-Waite World card. The four figures at the corners of the card (which to me represent the fixed signs of the Zodiac) seemed cartoonish. One is a man (Aquarius) but the other three seemed to have human features, which struck me as a little silly and whimsical, but it was ok. The second thing was that the wreath around the dancing figure looked scaly to me, and I kept picturing it as an ourubourus snake even though I know its supposed to be leaves, ideally with roses. Why did Pixie leave off the roses, I wondered. The first night was very relaxing and I enjoyed the meditation, especially connecting the "cradle" idea with The World, being rocked gently to sleep. I did dream but couldn't remember it.

The second night (last night) was completely different. Instead of relaxing, it was vaguely scary and the meditation kept me awake instead of soothing me. I couldn't stop thinking about the snake-like wreath, which didn't really bother me. I like snakes. But it just kept coming back into my mind and preventing anything else from occurring to me. Even the 'cradle" rocking didn't help me to get into the right state, which got more tense as I continued. Finally I gave up and just let myself go to sleep without even trying to visualize anything.

Tonight is a new card for the Waxing Crescent phase, whose keyphrase is "The Dream". The card is the Six of Cups, a pleasant card for a dream. Meanwhile I transcribed the Yeats poem into my Moon journal for handy reference. So we'll see what happens next.

I'm looking forward to regenerating some intuitive abilities, as Katz and Goodwin describe in their intro. I feel that I'm intellectualizing too much - which is my nature, with natal Moon in Aquarius and Gemini Rising. However, this is supposed to be an "off-book" exercise for renewed intuition, and here I am doing research, looking up the Yeats poem, studying moon phases, even re-reading my old notes on Florence Farr and Golden Dawn, to prepare for this lunar cycle working. Wrong? I guess I should just let it flow, without any expectations or pre-fabricated ideas, and give my rusty, hide-bound intuition a chance to emerge from the shadows.

Tarot Blog: Introduction (for lack of a better title)

I've decided to make this personal blog into a Tarot Blog. I wish I could think of a more magickal sounding name for it. Maybe eventually I will. "Tarot Blog" is just so plain and ugly, and I hate the word "blog" with rhymes with "flog"....

Anyway - the reason behind it? I've been in a renaissance with Tarot lately.  Long story, which started with receiving  Book of Shadows Tarot from a dear friend as a Yule gift in 2013. While it was good to have cards that were Wiccan-themed,  many of these cards seemed to have no connection to traditional Tarot images and symbols, which was a challenge. Still, I loved working with it over the past year and half or so.  It expanded my horizons with regard to how the basic form of tarot can be used and forced me to consider a broader possible interpretation of the cards in general.  Before that, I'd been in a quiet phase of tarot, having lost my entire collection of at least 20 tarot decks in a fire a few years ago. Shortly after that,  I received a new Sacred Rose deck from a thoughtful soul-friend, and those cards are still my all-time favorite. I purchased a few of the newer decks, but wasn't quite ready to pursue a regular tarot practice for awhile.  I was in a quiet phase with everything, as I rebuilt my life and slowly found my way back home.

What I'd been doing over this past year and a half with the Book of Shadows tarot was simply drawing 3 cards on each New Moon.  Then I would check in on the following Full Moon and make notes on how this was working, or not. As the moons passed, I noticed that the 3 cards seemed to coincide with the ongoing lunar phases. The first card, which I was originally reading as "The Past", was a good indicator for the first part of the waxing phase. When I checked in mid-cycle, on New Moon, the middle card, which I'd been reading as "Present" was beginning to manifest effects. The third card, "Future", was an accurate picture of what was going on by the time I did my final look at these three cards on the next New Moon, prior to pulling out the next set of 3.  And so on and so forth.

I should explain my methods of tarot reading here before going on to what came next. I am a minimalist as far as card readings are concerned. The fewer cards, the better, and I don't do reversed interpretations at all. If a card turns up reversed, I simply turn it right-side-up, with the philosophy that the tarot is a completely positive divination tool and doesn't intend any of its messages to be reversed. If a card or cards betokens some warning, it should be obvious from the picture presented by the reading as a whole. Besides, reading with no need to reverse a card's meaning makes it easier for me. At one point in my 50 years of off and on tarot studies, I went through the inevitable stage of believing that the more cards you use in a reading, the more accurate it can be. I did readings with entire decks, using every card, major and minor arcana, and all sorts of complicated Life Readings and Soul Readings and other mumbo jumbo. What a mess. Not only was it exhausting and took hours to do, but it was usually a very ambiguous reading in the end with so many possibilities (all the cards!) thrown out for perusal.  Finally I gave up on the huge tarot readings and used less and less cards until now I am down to just 3 at a time, which gives me a very clear picture at this point in my tarot journey.

About 2 months ago I started reading posts online about Pamela Colman Smith, the artist of the Rider-Waite tarot deck. Right away, I felt a strong kinship with this woman known as "Pixie", as I learned more and more about her life and her art. I ordered a copy of  the book  "Secrets of the Waite-Smith Tarot" by Marcus Katz and Tali Goodwin as soon as it was published. Then another close friend gifted me with the Pamela Colman Smith Commemorative Set for my birthday, to top it all off! It's a beautifully boxed set that includes the Smith-Waite Centennial Edition deck,  a copy of Waite's "Pictorial Tarot" which was originally written to accompany the first publication of the deck, another book "The Artwork and Times of Pamela Colman Smith" by Stuart Kaplan,  some postcards and prints of Smith's non-tarot artwork, a photo of herself, and a little folder of layouts for the cards.  I've read some reviews of this boxed set that complain about the way the Centennial Edition deck has been printed, presumably with a rather faded effect to make it look old and a bit fuzzy.  I have no problem with this, in fact I love it. It gives a feeling of time-travel through the cards, which I thoroughly enjoy.

So I'm off on a new track of my lifetime travels with the tarot.  As custom recommends, I've been sleeping with my new Smith-Waite tarot deck under my pillow.  It's a new look at an old deck, one that is a classic and has accompanied me off and on throughout my tarot adventures.  With the next new moon, I will start using it as my regular deck. Until then, I will draw one card a day. This will help me bond with the deck.

This blog entry sets the stage for future entries to come. If  you liked reading this, stay tuned for more. I welcome comments and discussion too.
 

It's been a long, busy Summer. Haven't written in this blog since before Beltane. Now it's Autumn Equinox and it feels like Samhain is coming early this year, judging from the recent signs and messages from the Other Side.

In honor of Autumn and swiftly approaching Samhain, I share this poem I wrote last year "For my Dearly Departed". Lately it struck me that "dearly" is an adverb and therefore must apply to "departed" as a very, not a noun. Not everyone departed so dearly, in fact very few do.

Anyway, here it is, slightly edited from the original poem. It is a Calvera, a Skull Poem traditionally written on the Day of the Dead, usually as a satire. Offerings are made to the departed loved ones on the Day of the Dead, as we also make offerings on Samhain of things the people enjoyed when they were still here with us.

Can kisses come back like ghosts?
I hope yours never do
Because your lips tasted like Kools
And I still hear you wheezing in the kitchen when you laughed
Then you'd light up another smoke.
But here's three packs for you,
I spent the last of my money on them.
Now you can have all you want
And you won't choke.
Maybe one more kiss tonight?
It will taste like heaven. 

The poem reflects the mixed emotions I experienced on the occasion of my late husband's demise. There has been some healing with time's passing. Last night he popped up in the middle of a rather mundane, ordinary dream. In the dream I was at Wal-Mart with my sister and my cousin, wandering around the outdoor garden center. My cousin pointed out a strand of unlit star decorations  hanging above our heads, Christmas stuff. When I looked up, there was a bright flash and suddenly it was New Years midnight and Jay was standing there, smiling and clear as day. Music started playing (Auld Lang Syne) and we exchanged a New Year's kiss. I wished him a happy 2015. There was no animosity, only fond affection. It was so vivid, I could feel his soft beard against my cheek as we hugged and kissed. Then suddenly he was gone and everything went back to normal. I was looking for my sister's truck in the Wal-Mart parking lot. It doesn't get more mundane than that, does it? Somewhere in the world, they do observe New Year's today, on Autumn Equinox, but I'm not sure where.

On other topics, I'm going to drum class later this evening, which continues through mid-November. Learning to play the djembe. I am not ready to go out and buy one, but I'm having fun and expanding my musical horizons.

Then I'll come home and do a simple Autumn welcoming, a little meditation on the changing seasons, and maybe some more writing.

My front yard has been transformed into the garden I've always wanted. No more lawn! I killed my back, which was not in the greatest of shape for starters, between digging up a tiny herb garden in the backyard (tiny because I ran into some rocky ground and had to limit my original plans), shoveling a whole dump truck of mulch into the wheelbarrow and distributing it through the garden, then to top it off, filling in the center of the garden with one cubic yard of pea gravel, one bag at a time. It was worth the effort, some of it in near 90 degree weather, even if my digging days are over now and I've been advised to use a cane if I'm going to be on my feet for more than 10 minutes at a time.

The Dwelling-Within Time looks like it's shaping up into a quiet time of rest and recovery for me.

Sweet Leilani

She's finally here! Isn't she gorgeous? says great-grandma.

Amber was in labor for about 16 hours. And when Leilani was on her way down the birth canal, she unfortunately (and this is gross, I warn you!) pooped and ingested some of it. She had to stay in Special Care for a week because she was on IVs and oxygen. She has a heart murmur, and is going to see a cardiologist on the 22nd. 

She was also born with two thumbs on her right hand! And she's tiny. She weighed just a little over 6 lbs. at birth and is 19 inches tall. 

Both mother and daughter are doing fine now. Leilani is eating regularly and gaining weight and strength. 

Just look at those dreamy eyes.