Gaian Tarot Artist's Journal

4 of Air (Swords) - Gaian Tarot Card of the Week

What do we most need to know for the coming week?

4 of Air 

Love this card, with its message of creating a sacred space for meditation, contemplation, incubation of new ideas.  Protecting those new thoughts or intuitions or creative sparks from scoffers and naysayers, including interior ones.

How will you and I create sacred space this week, each day, to allow the Muse to come on in?

For me - besides my early morning devotions, I’m taking breaks throughout my day to watch my breath, to jot down more items on my gratitude list, and to go outside and stretch . . . and just notice what’s going on in the “neighborhood.”   

I’ve started work on the Gaian Elder of Air, and that too feels like something I want to protect until it’s all done.  

How about you, dear Reader?   

PSG: Unplugged

Photo found here.
Craig and I returned home in the wee hours this morning from Camp Zoe, Missouri in the Ozark Mountains, where we spent nine days at Pagan Spirit Gathering. It was a true “time out of time,” a time between the worlds. Even though some people had access to the internet (though not cell phone coverage), not much news from the world beyond us trickled down. And that was just fine with me.

I discovered that I love being unplugged, both from the internet and the phone.  Nine whole days. What happens when you unplug?  It’s all about slow time, natural time, as my friend Waverly Fitzgerald so often writes about. The days at Camp Zoe were divided into sections that reminded me of medieval Hours:  Waking; Morning Meeting; Noontime Meal; Noontime Concert; Workshop 1, Workshop 2 (or, River Play Time); Evening Meal; Evening Concert; Evening Ritual; Drum/Fire Circle; Bedtime.

The Moon - Gaian Tarot Card of the Week

Hello, dear readers!

I am away from my computer this week, at PSG in Missouri.  This is the first time, I think, that I will be completely unplugged for 10 days.  Wow!

I pulled this card for the coming week on Friday, but I have to confess that I was too braindead to even try to read it.  So I am counting all of you to send in comments on how you respond to the Moon card, and what wisdom it might have for you in the week to come.

Brightest Blessings to all,

Joanna

Tarot Cards in "The Wheel" by Roseanne Cash

Mary Greer posted this video of "The Wheel" by Rosanne Cash on her blog.  It is seriously delightful to recognize so many living, breathing RWS Tarot cards in it!  How many cards can you find in it?

Rosanne Cash - The Wheel (Official Music Video) 

Moment of Grace: First Wild Roses of Summer

I first posted this photo a year ago, but it's too beautiful not to share it again. Blessed be.

Elder of Fire (King of Wands) - Gaian Tarot Card of the Week

What do we most need to know for the coming week?

Elder of Fire 

This morning I pulled a card that I can’t show you, because I haven’t finished painting it yet. (It will be done in another month or so.)  I can describe her, though:  She is an Hispanic woman in her 70’s, a curandera (healer).  She squats on the earth, a desert scene in the background. She holds a handful of burning herbs in one hand as she moves the other to direct waves of energy that dissipate the foul and bring in the sweet.  She lives in la época del mito (the Otherworld, the time of myth) as much — or more — as she does in the world of consensual reality. Her gaze, directed at the viewer, is potent and challenging.

Whew.  This is an intense card and I am so looking forward to bringing it to life. 

As for the coming week, the card brings up a number of associations for me.  It’s a reminder, first of all, for me to embrace my “elderhood” and also to embrace the witch/healer within.  Sometimes I feel like I’m teetering on that edge between the “queen” stage of life and the elder stage; some days I’m one and some days the other.  (Not so much the maiden or mother anymore.)  

It’s also a reminder to open up to the Otherworld, the world of energy patterns and spirits and Invisibles.  A reminder that we can shift our own inner reality, which then shifts our outer reality as well. 

I’ve been rereading Forests of the Heart by Charles deLint and one of the characters, Bettina’s abuela, is a dead ringer for the Elder of Fire.  Makes me want to go back and again read the sections about her. 

In other synchronicities, I recently reconnected with two old friends, both Latina, on Facebook — one was my college roommate and the other was a friend from the southern California Goddess community in the 80’s.  I haven’t seen one since 1972 and the other since 1989. Both had gorgeous black hair now turning silver. Both have the same first name. I’m not sure if this means anything at all, I’m just noticing the synchronicity.  There’s something there . . . what is it?  

This week I’m preparing to teach my Tarot workshops at Pagan Spirit Gathering and packing for the journey, while tying up loose ends for clients.  It seems to me, however, that I need to set aside time to meditate, go within and have a little conversation with the Elder of Fire in preparation for next week at PSG.  Every immersion into a gathering of the tribe has its own gifts and the potential for epiphanies and healing.  It seems to me that I’m being asked to prepare this week, in order to receive the magic and messages that will come my way next week.  Oh yes, and perhaps I should plan to spend a lot of time at the Sacred Fire Circle.  Blessed be.

What about you, dear Reader?  Can you receive a message from my description of the card?  Have a blessed week.

Moments of Grace: Blossoms Overhead

When I walk out my front door and look up, this is what I see.

"May all eyes be open to the transforming delight of Summer this day; may the earth be made glad by the dance of life, may we discern the blessed peace of the Plain of Delight upon our planet." 

- Caitlin Matthews, Celtic Devotional

High Priestess - Gaian Tarot Card of the Week

High Priestess

Mmmm . . . one of my favorite cards.  And a bit of a surprise really, as I expect this coming week to be quite active, as I work on projects for clients, refine my marketing materials and prepare for the Tarot workshops I’m going to be teaching at PSG.  And the weather here is so delightful, it’s more in tune with the Sun card.  We are having a run of days full of sunshine that just make you want to dance!   I think of the High Priestess as more in alignment with cool, rainy weather, when it’s easier to withdraw from the world and go within. 

So perhaps this is what the High Priestess asks of me this week:  to make sure that I take breaks from my work schedule to feed my spirit and to listen to the voice of the Invisibles, as Sister Kim Mermaid calls them.  To practice mindfulness, wherein I give my full attention to whatever I am doing, moment by moment.  To be aware of the currents of energy that run just below the surface.  To catch the movement happening just beyond the scope of my vision.  To listen to the music just out of range of my hearing.

I started rereading one of my favorite novels last night, Forests of the Heart by Charles deLint, and it does take me directly to that in-between-the-worlds kind of place. 

Listen to the voice of the wind, she says, and the voice of your dreams. Be on the lookout for signs and omens as you spend time outside. What is the voice of the river beneath the river, the sea beneath the sea?  Can you understand the language of the birds?  The language of the flowers?  

And how about you, dear Reader?  What does the High Priestess ask of you?