Lapis Philosophorum

Hopi Time of Renewal Dec 23rd This card indicates the best way for us to seek purification and renewal, and to build tolerance for others.

I think that what is most important for me now is the aspect of Tolerance, so that I will focus on, since that may be what is difficult for the Queen of Swords.

I drew the Lord, which at once seems just as harsh, even harsher, than the Swords Queen. But I guess this is about setting boundaries and structure. To be clear in my communication of my own values. To let people know who I am, and what I stand for. When I know who I am, it is easier to let other people be who they are, and not crossing boundaries, thereby creating unnesseacary conflicts.

Vacation for the holidays. Time for relaxing – and facing shadows:

The Time of Beth: – Dec 22nd This card points to the inner blocks and resistance that is holding us back from following our dreams.

Queen of Swords. I do know this lady. She is tough, maybe even harsh, and she has a tendency to be cold and critical. Or so it seems, she can also be clear and wise. But. When I turn her against myself she tells me , “nothing is never really good enough”.

She is a Lady of high standards and ideals, and when I – as a human being – am making mistakes, which I do quite often, She is there immediately. I have tried to come to terms with her this last year – in the shape of miss Perfect – but I must admit she still have a strong hold on me. Especially when it comes to writing – my dream.

The irony is that She could be used to enhance my creativity because she is indeed clear and strong and razor blade sharp. She should not be in charge of the overall process, though.

It’s quiet now, and almost full moon. The candles are lit, the deep blue reading cloth is laid out and I’m about to draw the first card in the 12-cards circle of the Sacred Days of Yule spread.

To night it is about dreams and dreaming:

1. Mother Night of Dreams: – Dec 20th This card reminds us to look for a particular message in our dreams tonight. The ancients believed that our dreams on this night foretold some of the important events in the coming year.

I drew the Magician – a very powerful character.

He is standing in the circle of Stonehenge, at Summer Solstice, the exact opposite time of the year from now. At Stonehenge the union of the Divine feminine and the Divine Masculine was celebrated, and now the Magician is ready, with all his tools and power to make that union possible. He is reaching his right arm towards the sky, while pointing his left arm to the ground to channel the energy.

So what should I look for in my dreams tonight? Strong, impressive, frightening, masculine energy – Animus energy. Animus as the Wise man, the Magician, the healer. Interestingly, last year I drew Knight of Cups, a softer, romantic energy. A knight, though – but the Knight of the Heart.

This one is about magical power, about acknowledging the darkness and the shadow  sides of life, that I must face and endure if I am to be creative and whole.

So – what is this Yule-tide about, anyway?

In Danish it has been suggested that there may be a connection between the word Jul and Hjul (Wheel) as in the wheel of the year. Another word Guili signified a period of  midwinter celebrations from late December to the first days of January, determined by a lunar calendar.

Yule was a midwinter festival celebrated by Germanic and Nordic people as a celebrating of  the return of light at the winter solstice, but was later absorbed by Christianity. A yule log was lit at the hearth of the house, and the celebrations lasted as long as it was still burning or glowing.

It has also been suggested that it was a blót or a drinking festival in honor of the german and norse gods Thor and/or Odin, and scholars have linked the celebrations to the myth or legend of the Wild Hunt.

Yule was celebrated for a fertile and peaceful season and consisted of a fertility sacrifice, which is inherent in the concept of blót which means a sacremental meal or feast, with sacrifices of food or animals.

So, what are we celebrating? The return of the light and the sun, fertility, prosperity, the hope of peace and the happy expectations of a new Beginning. One circle has come full – a new circle is starting all over. So it is definitively a period of passage from dark to light, and thereby it signifies something holy or sacred – also for us modern pagans/heathens.

With these words I’ll start my Sacred Days of Yule Spread.

It is now again time for the Sacred Days of Yule Spread. As always I’m using The DruidCraft Tarot created by Philip and Stephanie Carr-Gomm and beautifully illustrated by Will Worthington. I simply adore this deck. Especially the Star, which you can see on top of the pile of the cards  on the image.

From monday and during the holidays I’ll be posting every day here and in the Aeclectic. Starting this weekend though, with a post on the Yule.

Hope you will join in.

This time the two cards in the Little Cross don’t seem to opposite each other. On the contrary they point in the same direction. Actually what I asked was something like how can I keep and nurture my energy? So one should think, that this is all about Fire. But No. The answer is Water.

So we have the Knight of Vessels standing in the lake, gathering  water in his vessel. According to the LWB he is collecting information from the unconsciousness, which is of course exactly what the water symbolizes. But there is always the danger of getting more than bargained for or to get in too deep. I don’t need to be foolish and just take the plunge.

I need to be awake and aware, I’ve already gotten the message, I just have to take notice. The fish is the message – according to the Alchemical Study Group – the Knight just have to be aware of it:

“[You] may be getting a message “out of the blue,” perhaps in the form of a synchronicity. It is an unexpected emotional satisfaction. Maybe you’ve already gotten it, and like the knight, need to take notice. Open your eyes to what is around you.”

And what is the fish then? A BIG fish. The Ace of Vessels, no less. An extremely interesting card, I think. A fish carrying a vessel on it’s back, wherein floats a heart shaped vessel in blood (?) from where grows a vine with two bunches of blue grapes.

The vessel symbolizes the alchemical retort, wherein the philosophers stone can be transformed, and everything about the card indicates that Love is the agent or catalysator of this process:

“The card points out that both the goal and the source of emotions, represented by the heart in the vessel, is the need to give and receive love. Love is the very source of life, and the goal of love is to be fruitful. Rejoice and release an out-flowing of love, and allow its returning bounty into your soul, for then the alchemical vessel of the heart shall sustain new life.”

This card is also about finding one’s purpose in life, according to the LWB. And since it is about transformation by Love, there seems to be here an intertwining of meanings; that the purpose of life, any life, is Love.

Where the Staffs are about passionate love, Eros, the Vessels are about empathic love, or Agape. This is what this out-flowing of love seems to be about, when we are in the Realm of Water. But maybe this difference may not be that important – after all, love is love is love – like; a rose is a rose is a rose.

Images from The Alchemical Tarot, copyright Robert M. Place, are used with kind permission. Visit the Alchemical Tarot website.

“I would rather have people learn how to hear the gods for themselves than trust the word of someone who says they can consult the gods for us.”‘

Says Paul Nagy to Enrique Enriquez in a interview on his tarotblog, tarology.

To divine means to communicate with the gods. Somehow this is something we have forgotten in our western culture. I think we should all be able to divine, be it via dreams or via I Ching or Tarot, or yet another divining tool.

So all though I do NOT read the cards for others my aim is to encourage you, my reader, to use the tarot for listening to the gods – to hear Your truth.

I take this as an opportunity to revive this blog. Because I hope to use this as a medium for writing about my love for the tarot as exactly that; a way for us to listen to the gods.

” [T]he Tarot is like a personal sage that one can converse with whenever guidance is needed. As day to day decisions are made from this place of wisdom, using the Tarot becomes a spiritual path”. Robert Place

The Tarot being a sage, what would he tell me today?

Again I use the little cross and I draw:

The Situation Knight of Vessels being crossed by The Challenge Two of Coins.

The Knight is tapping into the unconsciousness, into the sea of creativity and inspiration, and holds water from there in his Vessel. Also a fish is looking up from the water. This Knight is – as most knights of vessels or cups – a Knight of the Heart, as I can tell from the heart on back of his armour.  He has what he needs and what he came for.

Tarot wisdom from the Alchemical Tarot Study Group says:

“The message here speaks to the attainment of emotional satisfaction. But, when questing into emotions and the unconscious, do not go off foolishly into the depths. Also, you may be getting a message “out of the blue,” perhaps in the form of a synchronicity. It is an unexpected emotional satisfaction. Maybe you’ve already gotten it, and like the knight, need to take notice. Open your eyes to what is around you.”

So what I need I al ready have, I just need to open my eyes for it.

The Two of Coins also goes under the name The Fixation of the Volatile. That is the process of stiffening what is in a flux. Something is preventing me from actually get into a flow and understanding or appreeciating or using what I have found in the water. Perhaps.

From the Alchemical Tarot Study Group:

The image shows an alchemical lemniscate surrounding a sun and moon; these are a gold solar coin and a silver lunar coin, representing the masculine and feminine. … The lemniscate is crowned by two animal heads. The lion represents the fixed in alchemy. It swallows the eagle, which is volatile. This is a fitting image for the earth suit, for it shows fixation in the material plane. A certain danger is present because of the polarization of the masculine and feminine. Their dynamic tension and opposition are being held together in the lemniscate, a manifestation of the higher self, which is able to hold these opposites in balance.

Materially speaking the fixation is neccessary – and maybe it is not that bad after all, maybe this is about realising the fluid insights found in the water and making into something more tangible and fixed, something more useful, so to speak.

The problem is that something will be lost in this process, but I guess that is prize of creating – to make your insights real, choices have to be made. We have to get back onto the solid ground and act upon our insights, and take the responsibility of these actions – ethical or psychological or creative.

So – I guess the Sage is simply telling me: “Get Real!”

Images from The Alchemical Tarot, copyright Robert M. Place, are used with kind permission. Visit the Alchemical Tarot website.

I have not been writing on this blog since february. And that is really, really bad for a blog. Instead I have been writing on my danish blog – a lot. I’m in doubt as whether to continue here, but as I drift through the posts, I find a lot fine content in here, and I do feel the urge to carry on. So I think I will continue my weekly two card readings. If only for my own sake.  Feel free to come back tomorrow for a new Little Cross reading.

I look towards one of the more busy weeks. I did not really have a specific question, several passed through my mind, then I just asked What do you want to tell me?

As the Situation I drew Nine Staffs – the Wolf, and as the Challenge I drew Six Vessels – the Gardener.

Fire and Water, again. Hmm. This rings a bell. I’ve had this combination before,  in another spread, though.

The Wolf

Now – in this spread – the Wolf is the Situation, while the Gardener is the Challenge. I guess this is about comfort zones, and the Grey Wolf is about sacrificing my comfort zone, my sense of serenity, in order to go to another place.

Actually Edinger writes in his Anatomy of The Psyche : Alchemical Symbolism in Psychoterapy (1994) that the sacrificing of the wolf to restore the King is a process of Calcinatio, of purifying by fire.

[The death of the king] would signify the the death of the ruling principle of consciousness, the highest principle of the authority in the hierarchial structure of the ego. Death of the king would then be accompanied by a regressive dissolution of the conscious personality. This course of events is indicated by the fact that the body of the king is fed to a ravenous wolf; that is the ego has been devoured by hungry desireousness. The wolf in turn is fed to the fire. But wolf=desire and desire=fire. Thus desire consumes itself. After a descent into hell, the ego (king) is reborn, phoenixlike, in a purified state.
(p. 19)

So, I’m (still) in Hell or put mildly, out of my comfort zone. On the internal plan some things are going on, that will take me out of my comfort zone, if I dare do the sacrificing. Of course this is not easy, and it is not nice. But it seems that I’m already out there since this creature keeps coming up in my readings.

He simply will not let me off this theeth.

And here comes the Challenge, and the good part. The wolf situation is an internal process of psychological alchemy, that I’m going through. On the external I’ll be tending to whatever that need to be tended, I will water my flowers, do whatever has to be done.

Preferably I should also be tender and nurturing towards myself.

What is your comfort zone and are you willing to sacrifice it? Can you, willingly or not? Sometimes we are not even asked.

Images from The Alchemical Tarot, copyright Robert M. Place, are used with kind permission. Visit the Alchemical Tarot website.