This week I had been feeling like a Knight reversed.  I had been struggling with doubts about the direction I'm going in (hardly an issue for a Knight!), and I didn't feel full of confidence and purpose.
    My doubts resulted in a week of stasis.  Lacking inspiration and focus I hadn't picked up my deck all week.  I just didn't have the heart.  Doubts were creeping in about whether or not I'm doing enough with my life, doubts about Tarot being the right Path for me, doubts about my abilities as a Tarot reader, and more than all these...doubts about my purpose as a reader.  Seven years of study and reading...where is this going?
    On top of these I had also been having doubts about Tarot group I had started for the Delaware region.  I envision it as a safe place where Tarot readers of all experience and all walks of life can get together once a month to engage in Tarot study and fellowship, hone intuitive skills, and practice face to face reading.
    The response has been a little disheartening.  January's meeting was ok, I did have a couple members attend.  We had a good meeting, we discussed the cards and read for eachother.  But for the month of February no one was planning on coming.  "Maybe" really means "No", lol. I don't especially take it personal, these are busy times, and we live in a cyber world.  Physically getting people together anymore seems like the fantasy cyberspace once was.  Still, it does sting when something you care deeply about and put your energy and resources into just doesn't want to manifest!
    So I was feeling down and having my doubts about this Tarot group as well.  Yet when I drew cards on the matter seeking guidance, I kept getting reassuring, positive messages.  Messages that yes, the group is worth doing and that I would come out of February feeling really, really good.
    I thought, How in the World can this be?  I'm the only one going, I know I'm the only one who is going to show up at the Starbucks in Middletown.  Come on...I figured the cards were just being cheeky with me as you know they sometimes can be.  Smart alec deck!    
    And then I received a message.  A new member had just joined the Tarot group and was coming to the meeting.  I was happy, but didn't know what, or whom! to expect.
    Turns out this new member was already at Starbucks when I arrived.  I walked right by him and I don't think I even gave him a second glance because whatever I was expecting it wasn't him....a wizened Gentleman with a cane.  Essentially the Hermit.
    We were the only ones at tonight's meeting, but it was enough.  I have to say that those who didn't come missed out.  Psychic, Tarot reader, Astrologist, Teacher, the Hermit and I talked for 2 hours about Tarot. About life. The Hermit spoke, and I was more than happy to listen.
    It was amazing, and all the while I marveled that God and the Universe had placed the Hermit in my path. A conversation with the Hermit was exactly what I needed. I needed to hear that the Universe always places in our hand what we need.  I am always exactly where I need to be, whether I know it or not...and I continue to doubt. And God continues to send. And I continue to doubt...and the Universe continues to send! More than this, I continue to be surprised when He sends.  Isn't that crazy?  I can just laugh and shake my head.
    I was reminded tonight that Tarot is not a means to an end.  We don't read Tarot with the intent of "getting somewhere".  We do it because it feels right in our heart.  We do it because maybe we can glean understanding from the messages that appear, and if we're lucky we'll get the opportunity to share those messages with others.  Just do it.  Nike actually got this one right.
    If you are feeling as though your journey lacks purpose, try not to have such doubts.  Listen to the Hermit who suddenly appears in your life, and let in the knowledge he has gained through years of experience and solitude.  

    And then...Just do it.  Tonight I felt my inner Knight upright himself and begin moving forward again.

    During my time as a counselor in the mountains of Larkspur, CO at the all boy treatment facility Griffith's Center for Children, we had an exercise we used to do with the boys.
    While sex offenders, many of these boys were victims themselves in one way or another, and they held on tightly to past emotional scars, injustices, abuses, and unhealthy ways of being.  Part of our job was discovering what it was they held on so tightly to...and getting them to let go.

    Group therapy sessions presented unique challenges.  One of the therapists was a man named Carl.  Boys being boys, our teenage charges were very results oriented, and the best group therapy was therapy that the boys could see in action.  Carl, along with an older man named Will, was exceptionally good at these physical illustrations to demonstrate to the boys the difficulty they were truly in.  GCC was a lot of questionable things, but in these men the facility had gold.

    When I first saw Carl do the following exercise with the boys I thought it was a great example of how we hang on to the unhealthy principles of the Devil.

    Carl had the boys take up a marker in their dominant hand, and then squeeze and hold on to it as hard as they could.  As you can imagine, this quickly escalated into the boys seeing who could hold on the tightest = who was the strongest!  He really had them put every little bit of their energy, physical and mental, into gripping that marker...as though their lives depended on it.  Gripping it until it hurts.  Then....try and let go.

    The boys found that it was difficult to do so.  For a split second their hands, being so accustomed to gripping that marker, would not initially unfold and allow them to let go.  They had been holding on so tightly, the muscles would not relax and almost had to be retrained to release.  The figurative point being of course that when we become accustomed to holding on so tightly it hurts, we find it difficult to let go when the time comes to do so.

    "Weird!" was the chorus.
    Weird indeed.  Try it.  I have. 

    It is a strange and poignant illustration of how we can hang on to the Devil and find difficulty in letting him drop.  We all have a story, we all have scars.  We all have our Devil, our demons, that we just can't let go of.  I certainly do.  Deep inside we know we should release.  Deep inside we know that it's unhealthy for our spiritual muscles to keep gripping that marker so hard it hurts.  And yet.

When the Devil appears in a reading, What are you holding on so tightly to? 

The following is the lyric to the Tears for Fears song "The Devil".  Anyone who knows me at all knows that I am a huge TFF fan. 
I heart you Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith, for "speaking" to me time and time again.  I thought I'd share:

 

 

The devil, take me now

Before I'm ushered out

'Cause you are like me

But I can bleed

 

And I can die

But I can't hide

From you

 

Prisoners of course

Taken by force

To smother my streams

Tonight in my dreams

'Cause I can die

But I can't hide

The way is clear

Away from here

And you

    If you are looking for a book of daily devotions, I recommend Streams in the Desert: 366 Daily Devotional Readings.  It is a book of writings and meditations compiled by L.B. Cowman.  I found it in a used bookstore years ago when I was working and living in Colorado Springs.  This little book has been such a source of inspiration and encouragement to me.  While the writings are Christian, I feel that the emphasis of this book is on God's promises.  The creator's promises and messages of hope that I feel are universal for those who believe in a Higher Power.
    But I digress.  I like to read the daily passages in the evenings.  If you're like me the nights tend to me the lonliest of times, when I find I have the most need for reflection and encouragement. Tonight's passage resonated with me because its very essence brought to mind the lion in the Strength Tarot card.  I present today's devotion:


February 23
        And there came a lion. (1 Samuel 17:34)
    It is a source of inspiration and strength to us to remember how the youthful David trusted God.  Through his faith in the Lord, he defeated a lion and a bear and later overthrew the mighty Goliath.  When the lion came to destroy his flock, it came as a wonderful opportunity for David.  If he had faltered and failed he would have missed God's opportunity for him.
    "And there came a lion."  Normally we think of a lion not as a special blessing from the Lord but only as a reason for alarm.  Yet the lion was God's opportunity in disguise.  Every difficulty and every temptation that comes our way, if we receive it correctly, is God's opportunity.
    When a "lion" comes to your life, recognize it as an opportunity, no matter how fierce it may outwardly seem.

    Opportunity.  That puts a different spin on Strength's lion doesn't it?
    
    I took heart in this passage on the Lion of Opportunity, and the message that resounds so strongly in Strength.  Arcana 8, Strength, is about meeting a frightening and overwhelming force with grace, beauty, and a gentle touch.  Embracing the challenge and later, with Arcanas 9 and 12 of the Hermit and the Hanged Man respectively, internalizing it.  Dare to gently pry loose the jaws of the beast, the opportunity in lion's clothing, that comes into your paradise.  And then, have courage and dare to have a look inside.
    This week I felt as though I faced my own beast, my own lion, my own opportunity.  In particular my husband being gone for long, and unexpected, periods of time.  A kind of purgatory I return to again and again.  A challenge yes.  But an opportunity?  Apparently so.
    I've always felt rather neutral about the card Strength.  But after tonight's passage I don't anymore.  I feel like I get  her, and I want to understand the opportunity she presents and the way she pushes me to greet it.
                                             When Strength appears in a reading, what challenge can you greet as an opportunity?

Strength from the Hudes Tarot, published by U.S. Games

 

  
    Today I bought the most beautiful quartz crystal sphere.  It's roughly the size of my palm and is everything a crystal sphere should be.  It has rainbows, and all other kinds of inclusions ("flaws") and is laced with other minerals throughout.  So pretty. 

    I was at the metaphysical shop Bell, Book & Candle about a week ago and saw the sphere.  I was completely hooked.  I've always been the sort of person who gets strangely attracted to the oddest objects in shops.  I was once drawn to a ratty old leather purse from a thrift shop, another time the most obnoxiously coloured cotton sweater in Goodwill.  It's also how I came across my massive quartz crystal point Athena.  I'm just drawn to these objects and I have to have them.  My Grandmother Lillian understood, she was always collecting or giving away objects that "called" or didn't "call" to her.

    At the time I saw the sphere I didn't initially purchase it.  Upon coming home though, and in the week that followed I just couldn't get it out of my mind.  So I went back to the shop to see if it was still there...and it was.  See?  Totally meant to come home with me.

    The woman who runs the shop is interesting, she has long gray hair and a Goddess moon tattoo smack in the middle of her forehead.  As she was wrapping up the sphere I asked her what other minerals were inside of it, and she said she didn't entirely know but that Tourmaline was one of them.  She then said that the sphere had a portal in it.

    "It will take you to exciting places."  She said.

    Ooookkkkk was kind of my initial impression.  In a crystal a portal is an inclusion, a "flaw", otherwise known as a Gateway.  It's a small window in a crystal, a little portal, where you can see right through to the center.  My crystal reference book also says that Gateway crystals connect us to past and future lives.  I don't know if that's true or not, but it is a cool concept.  Travel to past and future lives has always been an intrigue of man!  How many television series can you think of where an episode eventually features this theme?

    There is much of what I do anymore that is indeed amusing, and I can laugh at myself about it.  And I did feel a little silly spending so much time gazing into this bit of rock (at the desk, in the window, in various types of light) in an attempt to locate the portal.

    While I was doing this, as I was searching, I thought about the implication.  In a way don't we all spend our lives searching for the portal that will transport us to mysterious and exciting places?  And isn't the act of searching for the portal ultimately more fun and meaningful than when we actually find it?  It's the mystery, the excitement, the hope, that comes with the search that means the most.

    Literally and figuratively speaking I'm not really confident I've found the portal yet.  But portal or no portal, the object itself is still awesome and still beautiful.                                                                     

    My Tarot blog is a selection of journal entries I've written on Tarot about how Tarot is, and continues to be, so applicable to my life.  I have drawn inspiration and understanding from certain cards and wished to share them here.  I don't consider Tarot to simply be a tool for divination.  Tarot serves a higher purpose when used as a tool for self improvement, empowerment, and a constant reminder of the power of choice.