Tag: healing

17- The Star

This article is part of a series of posts that will compare each card in the Tarot across different decks in order to study and explore each archetype and concept more deeply. This is not necessarily meant to be a teaching tool for others, but if you like to study the Tarot as much as I do, I hope you find it interesting. Enjoy!

For more on the decks referenced here please see this page in my blog: Tools of the Locksmith https://wordpress.com/page/theramblinglocksmith.com/163

A major reference for this study was “Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom” by Rachel Pollack.

The Star

As we move along the road of the major arcana we now come to the Star after the Tower. The Star is the calm after the storm. It represents hope and maybe a little emptiness as you take the next steps after a big upheaval or loss from the Tower. Its a little bit like Temperance coming after Death, where you have undergone a major change and are now dealing with what you have left, only The Star is on another level.

In the Star a major structure in your life has fallen away, and you are no longer experimenting with what your medicine and you path are as with the Temperance card. In the Star you have clarity and connection with the path and important truths discovered by the Tower falling. At this point you are taking a brief pause to sit with this peace and this clarity before continuing.

Standard images from Rider-Waite in the card include:

  • Naked and relaxed figure representing freedom and relief
  • Two vessels of water being poured
    • One is being poured back into a body of water representing the faith that any contribution of your energy will always be supplied with new energy
    • one is being poured on the land representing the energy freed from the Tower flowing outwards as well as inwards
  • A pool of water even if small with the figure stepping into it – representing easy access to the subconscious. The figure still has one foot on the land representing the connection between the two
  • An ibis – symbol of the Egyptian God Thoth – an inventor of all arts.
  • Eight-pointed stars – reference back to the number 8 in the strength card now raised to a higher level. Also there is one main star, but its surrounded by 7 others.

The Way Home Tarot shows only the path and the 8 pointed star. In this way you can envision yourself in this scene instead of trying to relate to a figure already present in the picture. It also doesn’t show you the source or resolution of the path, just the path itself in the clarity that comes with the dawn after a long dark night of the soul.

What does clarity look like for you? Have you found it or are you still searching for peace? Are there more towers that still need to fall and choices that need to be made before you can see yourself in this card? What are they? Would it help if you try to only see the path itself?

The Artist Decoded Tarot visually highlights the Star itself and its proximity to the figure. It feels like the figure is connected or being pulled by the Star in a strong way. It gives the impression of an unmistakable sense of purpose that can no longer be detached from the self. Its so materialized and clear its almost heavy.

Have you ever felt this way about your own purpose? Do you feel this way now? If so sit with this feeling of being grounded and having extreme clarity at the same time. Let your muscle memory absorb it. You may need to remember it further down the line.

In the Sufi Tarot the start is prominent and patterned, and the figure contributes her own emotional and spiritual energy to the path leading to it. The two themes that seem to emerge here are weather the patterns in the star are newly formed and how much the person drawing the Star card is contributing to their own path.

Have you made a major change to your process or beliefs, so much so that you are able to see a new pattern emerge for yourself? Did you contribute to that change and are you still doing so? Is it a pattern you have fully embraced, or are you still getting used to this change? If so take the time to settle into it so it can stick, but embrace it. You did the work and you continue to do the work. Its your path, you built it with your own blood, sweat and tears.

The Brady Tarot embraces the Ibis as the central figure of the Star. And why not? All the other aspects of the card are almost identical to the Ride Waite Smith card except that the landscape is brought out in the block print artistry of Emi Brady representing the Everglades, where the separation between land and water is unclear.

If the Ibis is the inventor of all arts this card focuses on a renewed sense of creativity that is connected to your life’s purpose, maybe even a move toward a more creative path in your life. Would you like to be in more creative control of your life, or be allowed to use your creative side in a much stronger way? What are some ways you can see clearly and what are the steps you can take to get there? You are the writer of your own path, pick up the pen and draw where you want to be next.

The figure in the Star of the Santa Muerta Tarot has been here before. This person has been through so many iterations of this path that they are fully submerged in it and its work. They keep being reborn into it in fact. In this version of the life they keep repeating they are finally fully immersed in their environment and full of hope. They are not treading water, they are so deep and grounded they stand on the foundation of the emotional waters themself, and they can now move the water in subtle and important ways.

What iteration of your path and purpose are you on? Are you able to be fully submerged, and make your own waves, or are you still tiptoeing in the shallows and wondering if this is your true purpose? Stop wondering! Dive in! Be who you were born to be.

The Voyager Tarot Uses the figure of Kuan Yin as the prominent image in the Star. She is the water bearer of the universe and a Buddhist boddhisatva of compassion who pours out life giving waters and nourishes the universe. This card represents the law of luminosity in this particular deck where you recognize that you are the light that can lead others forward toward their own hope and their own path. You are the guiding light.

How do you relate to Kuan Yin? Are you looking for a version of her in your own life to help you find your way forward? Or have you realized that you posses your own light, and that you more than anyone else can show you the way? Or are you on a path that allows you to light the way for others? Reflect on how you relate here and above all recognize your own inner light in the process.

In the Osho Zen Tarot the moon is the star and the third eye of the figure floating through the universe. Its not on land, its not in the sea, it just is. The inner peace of the figure is fully met with the that of the Universe. The only resonance that is sought here is peace.

Are you in a peaceful place? If not what would it take to get there? Your minds eye needs silence in order to light the way for your intuition and show you your path. Surround yourself with environments and other people that have found a way to resonate with silence, and you will find your Star.

whiplash

whiplash from being pulled in all directions
reach out and retreat
rinse and repeat

my rollercoaster soul is trying to find true north 
while hanging upside down 
and looking sideways

center is a place I can find on a map
but not while swimming upstream
in turbulent waters
cold waters 
that numb my head and limbs
and cause me to breath 
to find my own thought patterns

somewhere in these scattered and disjointed thoughts 
is a path back to center
somewhere in the bottom of the river 
is the lever to stop the rollercoaster
or maybe it’s a lever to 
let the water finally 
flow through the dam

regulation and release
rinse and repeat
whiplash

after the storm part 1

If you want to fall off a cliff
It should because you jumped of your own
Free will
Not because you just weren’t looking

If you are going to drown out the rain with
 your thunder 
It should be because you have a truth to tell
A message of import to share
Not because you want to be the angriest and loudest soul around

And if you want to heal my heart
It should be because you love me
Not out of obligation
Or sensationalistic brilliance 

If you want to help me heal
Jump off the cliff with me
Be thunder with me
Pray for rain with me
And love me as you will
After the storm

counsel

counsel deep
counsel often
	ignore the scratching of the page mark and listen to the sounds of your heart
	the beats
	the patterns
	the silly laughs
	the edge of reason
	the quiet of fortitude and clarity
	
	ignore the noise of the hens pecking at the ground
	find your own nourishing noise and let that be all that feeds you
	
	ignore the mocking birds distracting you with a meaningless song
	you know what you want to sing
	sing it loud
	
	ignore the blank stares
	feel your own rhythms
	and know the solidity of the ground

Keep your own counsel

snipers

The perpendicularity of numbers and the washing of rice

If I were a snowflake where would I fall?

It’s like totally fulfilled and totally unfulfilled at the same time

It’s like croutons on Raisin Bran it make no sense that’s too much fiber

It’s like saving the last dance for the one who will never show up, it’s pointless

It’s like sharpening a pencil that already sharp, it’s wasted

It’s like finding the crayon after finishing the whole picture after looking for soo sooo long, it’s just a big fucking heartbreak

How do you kill my heart?

One bullet at a time baby.

At this point in my mind there is a man asking me for substance

At this point in my mind there is a woman screaming for the truth

A this point in my mind there is a whole religion forming

At this point in my mind

Life is unnecessary

At the point of a bullet not yet fired in a gun not yet made mama

At this point in my mind there is a sliver of hope, that my young parts cling to for dear life

At this point I find that sliver and name it, and give it a voice and a purpose but I’ve forgotten my own

At this point I give in and quit

And at the same time release the pain of the past

And start a new life full of hope and reason

At this point in my life I dismantle the gun and smelt it down to a heart shaped monument to the truth

To beauty

To hope

To hopeful reality

At this point a breath

And the agony of fear

That I might slip again and lose it all

To the sniper

At this point

In my life.

3 – The Empress

This article is part of a series of posts that will compare each card in the Tarot across different decks in order to study and explore each archetype and concept more deeply. This is not necessarily meant to be a teaching tool for others, but if you like to study the Tarot as much as I do, I hope you find it interesting. Enjoy!

For more on the decks referenced here please another page in my blog: Tools of the Locksmith: https://wordpress.com/page/theramblinglocksmith.com/163

A major reference for this study was “Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom” by Rachel Pollack.

This week we explore the feeling side of the female archetype – The Empress. Where last week’s card of The High Priestess represented introspection and thinking, The Empress is the pure emotion and the passionate approach to life with feeling. The Empress is about experiencing the world in a very physical way through nurturing and growing life itself. She is the Great Mother archetype.

In the Tarot of Mystic Moments the Empress wears a skirt of flowers and is surrounded by nature. A deep connection with nature is only possible by being out in nature and not reading or imagining it. It means going out on hikes, growing things in the dirt, growing food, growing people.

The Empress in this card carries a child and has taken off her crown to already hand to this child as a gesture of protective love. In this way its not just experiencing nature but protecting it and protecting all life.

She is truly Mother Nature, and a way to ask yourself what you are cultivating in the physical world, and if you are spending enough time in it or in nature, or if you are spending too much time in your head.

In the Way Home Tarot we see trees growing directly from a heart with the roots of the trees both being nurtured by and protecting the heart.

In the traditional Rider-Waite-Smith empress card the Empress has a shield with a heart on it. In this card the idea of unconditional love is taken even further to represent something that both nurtures and protects us.

Are you able to feel and receive as well as give unconditional love? Can you see it as a strength? If not you may need to explore which healing process might help you reach the ability to feel love in the world.

In the Tarot of the Divine the Empress is represented by Our Lady of Guadalupe – a Catholic Saint who preformed two miracles – one was a healing miracle and one was a miracle in the natural world with roses appearing on a hillside.

Healing ourself and others is a quality of the Empress, and part of healing is growth. Where do you need to heal, or how do you want to help others to heal and grow? Where do you need to grow yourself? Connect to your higher self and create your own miracles.

In the Voyager Tarot the Empress represents the law of preservation and the power to resurrect, re-create and revive shown here through the Egyptian goddess Selket who cures scorpion and other poisons. These are powerful words and we can only access what they mean for us if we are willing to deeply experience and connect with all of our emotions.

I’ve been writing about how important feeling vs thinking is in this archetype and this is the first card where we see some actual water which typically represents the emotional path of life.

Our emotions are rivers running through us and beneath us and they connect us to all of human experience. Without connecting to them we will most likely feel disconnected from others and from life, maybe even poisoned. Maybe we disconnected in order to protect ourselves and we need to convince ourselves that it is safe to reconnect and feel again. Being able to feel is a way to breath and experience the world, let any poison you have experienced be removed and allow yourself to feel your life again.

The dove over the Empresses head in this card represents peace – the peace we feel when we heal.

Well, I did say I wanted to see more water….in the Afro-Brazilian Tarot the Empress is represented by Yamanja, or as I’ve heard her called before, Yemoja in the Yoruba language. She is the mother of all Gods and in the Afro Brazilian pantheons, the power of the moon harnessed into controlled but nurturing emotion. The moon influences the waves and brings them back to the shore. Expanding on that we can picture that Yemoja is helping us feel grounded in our emotions as opposed to be tossed about at sea.

It is hard when we feel tossed about in the sea of our own emotion, we may need help from Yemoja to feel grounded in our feelings. But we can’t learn how to without going in the water in the first place.

Where do you need to dive back into how you experience, feel and grow in the world? If this card is speaking to you today you are ready…take the plunge!