This time of year when the veil is thin...
This time of year when the Western world desses up without really thinking about why...
This time of year when children from Christian families go round the neighborhood trick-or-treating, ignoring the roots of this tradition and yet, impersonating the deads...
Victims of profit, business, commerce, money, consumption and oblivious of the true spirits of the Ancestors...
This is the most important festival of the Wheel of the Year.
Crops are now gathered inside and breeding stock in excessive number has been slaughtered and salted in order to keep the bare minimum through the winter.
The festival lasts three days during which we can commune with the Otherworld. During this period, time is suspended. Pranks and divination abound. At the end of the three days, everyday life returns until the next Samhain one cycle later. It marks the end of one way of living associated with the summertime: the warmth of the hearth replaces the warmth of the sun. This festival focuses on the inner world and is the most private of all.
So I simply asked the Tarot what the energies were for this quiet season.
1) SEVEN OF WANDS
Interestingly, the Seven of Wands is telling us that we need to protect our territory against possible assaults. We need to preserve ourselves from exterior demands. Time to come first and stand up for oneself in the face of possible rivalry and competition. This alertness and caution will heighten our awareness and help our wisdom grow. It takes willpower to fight for oneself and to not succumb to outer requests or provocations.
The number seven is here to remind us that this fight for our space and mastery will strengthen our leadership and build our character.
The character on the card is atop a tower, a vantage point that gives him an advantage that we can benefit from: we too enjoy a panorama that helps us see clearly around us 360°.
Wands being of the element of fire, we feel excited and enthused about this current mission to keep to ourselves and not let others and the world feed off of us. We are the ones who need our own care the most. We are entering a restful season and need to let the lures and enticements of the outside world go by.
2) TWO OF SWORDS REVERSED
The card shows a woman dressed with a red cape sitting at a crossroads. Her eyes are blinded. The card is reversed in this reading so again, this points inward.
This may indicate that at this stage, we do not know which way to go in our life because we do not have all the necessary elements in our possession. The Mabon reading had shown us that we were closing a cycle and focusing on self-love. The Seven of Wands just told us to withdraw and not let the outer world overwhelm and drown us with its demands and tempations.
This card commands us to be patient and to not be emotional: Swords are of the mind and of the logic so it is a command to strategize and confront reality. This is what mastery truly is about even if we love to surrender to emotions and feelings. It is not quite the energy for that right now. The energy is for a time of liminal beingness. the goddess Hecate can be of help here.
3) SUMMARY
Calm, tranquillity, silence, inwardness are keywords for this season. The world is in disarray, it doesn't know where it is going and the best thing to do is to let it dissolve. Of course, this is a long process but for the spiritual warrior, this is also a destiny being accomplished: we are here to hold space, hold the energies of the New Earth and the chaos around us needs islands of rest, peace, and harmony. Our lives are havens and sanctuaries that channel and anchor spiritual energies and divine light. We have achieved our own healing and we are now the keepers of the healing of others and templates for a higher vibration.
What may feel like inaction is the introduction of a more feminine way of being and living. In that sense, we are pioneers. We embody the new "Tree of Life" or the new Tower as seen on the Seven of Wands.
Stillness is paramount in times of changes, movement, transformation, and profound shifts such as these.
We are the eye of the storm!
4) BEE
Bee jumped out of the deck while shuffling. Bee is associated with Beltane which is Samhain's opposite festival when the veil is also thin, though probably not as much.
Bee is asking us to celebrate. We can learn to celebrate this peak we have reached when our higher consciousness turns us into teachers that set a new frequency, a new life, a new paradigm on Earth. We can celebrate being alive to witness this historical time of radical evolution for the planet (I personally find it rather hard to be alive right now and wish I didn't have to witness so much turmoil, so many threats to things I love and values I cherish).
Maybe, at another level, Bee is suggesting that we can celebrate this new dawn and the new model of community we are building and creating. Bee is encouraging us (me!) to see the bigger and upcoming picture where humans share love and beauty and live in solidarity.
5) BRAMBLE
The keywords for Bramble are tenacity, boundaries, and rootedness. It feels very much in tune with the Tarot cards and message: as we need to protect our space and sit with wisdom waiting for instructions about our next step in life, we can practice, and apply, a sense of tenacity, rootedness and set strong boundaries.
A few weeks ago, I was still eating all the wild blackberries I could that grew along the path of my usual walk in nature. I like to eat them warm, when the sun has swollen their juice and softened their skin. My hands do get scratched a little bit but my inner child revels in these moments of pure joy and sheer communion with Mother Gaia. It does take tenacity to reach the berries at the back of the hedge or higher up where they are the thickest and the biggest. It takes a well-rooted gatherer to pick them without losing balance.
Bramble is clearly letting us know that we are learning to stay put and not going anywhere. This shows us we are the guardians of things we hold dear. I've led quite a nomadic life so this doesn't come naturally to me. Now I know that Bramble will inspire me.
6) HAPPY SAMHAIN!
A serene Samhain season is lying ahead of us. No big ambitions. More feminine energy. Learning to master allowing and welcoming and branching off from the old agonizing world. Integrating a more sedentary lifestyle or attitude with the help of the Goddess and Hecate. Dying. Rebirthing.
Healing Crystals
Orange calcite, black tourmaline
Oracle Cards
The Druid Animal Oracle - Philip & Stephanie Carr-Gomm
The Druid Plant Oracle - Philip & Stephanie Carr-Gomm
☆☆☆★☆☆☆
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