Beltaine & Ilbe

Beltaine, the first of May, seems a good time to try to restart this. Rather than draw a card from the physical deck today, I drew one from my personal extended version of the cards in Second Life. The card I got for the day and the season was one of the original Faeries' Oracle deck: Ilbe the Retriever

The SL "cards" are different from the "real life" deck in that they are all words and no pictures. They may also differ in (usually small) ways from the book. This one says:

Ilbe the Retriever is the manager of the Office of Onclaimed Property Stuff (OOPS). He know where all the lost things are... dreams, hopes, ideas, things. If you've lost it, he knows.

He is trying to remind you of something you've lost - a hope or a dream that you believe gone forever. However, he is offering it back to you for reconsideration. *He* thinks you can do something with it now...

The way may not be obvious, but his clever nose has scented a path, a potential opening for bringing this into your life.

Perhaps, he might be saying that it is just waiting for you to open your heart and accept it, but more likely you will need to actually work for it. Be faithful. Be dogged and persist.

My Comments:
I like getting this now... there has been so much that has fallen by the wayside because of various "have to" issues in my life. I'm pleased to see hopefulness here. I don't even have to try to decide which of the many "dropped" things Ilbe is talking about... opportunities will arise and the way will open.....

43 Geeeeeooo the Slooow

Card of the day:

Life has felt so complicated lately—well, for the last couple of years really. Yikes! That long! Looking at Geo and his soft, sweet smile, I realize that a lot of the seeming complications have been because I feel like time is rushingrushingrushing by and I'm not getting enough done!

When I think about that it is immediately clear that never in my life have I felt like I was getting enough done.

(thinks awhile...)

That brought me to a halt!

Okaaaaay...
Point 1. I have lots of ideas about wonderful things to do, probably too many for any one lifetime.

Point 2. I turn these knackerty knotions from "inspirations" into "oughts" - and then I feel even farther behind. For example, the eight unwritten books (and innumerable stories, essays, poetry chapbooks and other stuff) I have in my head—how many of them do I really want to write, and how many would I kinda like to write...someday...maybe, and how many are books others have told me they want me to write?

Point 3. I probably really need to think about all this and remove most of my knackerty knotions from the Ought To Do Mental File into mental files like: the Would Really Love To, the Might Want To Do Someday If There Is Time Allowed, and the Don't Really Want To, But It Was A Cool Idea Files.

(thinking, thinking, thinking...)

Well, gee, thanks a bunch, Geo! I'm feeling better already.

3 Guardian at the Gate, Reversed - and others

This morning I drew the Guardian at the Gate, reversed, for my card for the day. My life has been full of changes, and I've been seeing this as a difficult-to-get-through gateway. The harder I try to get through the transitions to a peaceful place on the other side, the more obstacles I run into.

I'm just realizing that it may be saying that "a peaceful place on the other side" might just be an illusion...

Ouch!

Ok, I'll think more about that in a bit. Whatever is on the other side will wait until I get there. Right now, I just need to get through all the changes currently facing me, and then find out what is next. Or do I? The card is reversed, so either the gate is blocked somehow or I'm afraid to go through it. Maybe I'm afraid to go through it be because it really isn't going to make things better. So perhaps what is ahead is different, but not necessarily peace and quiet contentment. I really am wondering now... maybe even the whole idea that there is a gate with one thing on one side and something different on the other is just wishful thinking.

I guess I need to think about what it means if this process just keeps on happening with no resolution into peacefullness but just more of life as usual.

I just drew another card, asking what is on the other side of the gate, and got Unity. My first hopeful leap on that is "Oh, great! Everything is going to come together and be just fine!" But I don't think that's quite right. I suspect that it's really saying, when I really listen, that things are as they are, it's not going to suddenly become all okay. What's on the other side of the gate is all one piece with what's on this side. I'm going to have to continue taking the rough with the smooth. I just hope that there can be a little less rough and a lot more smooth, but perhaps I need to let that go of that idea as well.

Unity is saying to me right now that life is all one piece, all woven together. Take it as it comes; don't get thrown off balance by the things that happen. Don't expect that they will stop happening, either. What is, is. Deal with it. But it's okay to ask for help as I deal with it.

In fact, I'd better ask for help or they'll be miffed at not getting to help. They know they are better at this than I am.

Sigh!

So then, not much liking (though appreciating and saying thank you) the daily news from the Otherworld, I drew another card, asking, "Is there some good news for the day?"

Lys of the Shadows came up, patted me on the head, and said, "This is good news - you just don't know it yet!"

Then, I spoke with a friend and we discussed it a bit. He drew a card for me, in hopes of sorting this out. Nelys the Alchemyst came up. The message he got from her is that, yes, things really are changing, and they won't be what they were before once the changes take place. That doesn't mean that everything will suddenly become easy. Some old problems will go away, and new lessons take their place. However, that's no excuse not to get on with it!

Hopefully, some of the new lessons will be less stressful and more fun! But it isn't a promise.

You know, I didn't especially want to hear this on the overcast morning with a soot-covered house, cat, and self to deal with...

For information on why we are all soot-covered here, see http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-FMpOHlwwdZk1A.LTogvJ?p=570 for the fiery details. And no, I didn't draw a card for that day until after the fire.

48 A Collective of Pixies

Card of the day:

Usually, I think of this collective as reminding me that I gotta do what I gotta do, so I might as well do it cheerfully and enjoy it. I tend to assume that they are talking about work, and certainly there is always work hanging around waiting to be done. This is a little different because I've been ill for a long while, work has been piling up and up and up, and there is still no energy to do it with, though I'm beginning to recover.

(I don't have a photo to go with this, but if I did, it would be something like wilted flowers and drooping grass.)

So, you can see why I first looked at the ernest faces on this card with a sinking feeling. Just about the time I was starting to flop around on the bottom, I realized that they were saying, "O! No! No! O!" I'm supposed to concentrate on getting well, not on getting work done. Work... well, it is always there.

I've been told this over and over, but today's message has finally gotten through. I need to do something more than force myself to avoid overdoing if I want to get better. If I'm going to be unwell anyway, I may as well just do it cheerfully and enjoy what I can of it. Enjoy the rest! Enjoy the quiet! Enjoy the solitude! Don't just take the time grudgingly, but embrace it. Don't feel guilty about lying there reading or sleeping. Enjoy it.

What a concept!

This has been a morning for turning ideas inside out...

20 Dark Lady

My card for today is the Dark Lady. It's a little surprising to pull her card so close to the Bright Mother's full moon, but these things happen, especially when I'm falling behind. I look at her, puzzled, but not really listening. When I finally realize that I'm not listening, I center and earth myself and open up.

She says firmly, "I understand what you need today. You'd understand, too, if you'd listen deeply enough."

This immediately reminds me that I haven't been doing my inner journeys as I had planned, intended, and "want" to do. It also reminds me that I do really need to do them. And it makes it clear that my resistance has been "winning" while I've not been even noticing that it is there. It's the old thing of, if you've decided to do something you want to do and know would be beneficial to you—and then you don't do it, that's resistance, plain and simple.

That searching gaze of hers always makes me feel naked and transparent to her—even if not to myself. I think perhaps an inner journey is in order today to learn what it is that I understand without knowing it—or know without understanding it.

Funny thing—I feel nervous about this, as if she were going to scold me. I usually feel that with her, and yet she has never been other than loving in all the years we have talked together. I suppose I'm projecting my own scolding of myself. (How many times has the Soul Shrinker warned me about that?!?) I get the sense that she is so gentle with me because usually we are dealing with my vulnerabilities, my shadow, the fears and other things that I hide from myself. She doesn't let me hide, but she isn't brutal about her revelations either.

I was kinda hoping for the Faery Godmother today! Fortunately, I can still ask Sairie for help.

60 The Pook Reversed

I recently did a reading for someone, and the Pook came up several times. What he was saying was a bit unusual so I thought I'd share it, insofar as I can without violating client confidence.

Basically we were looking at patterns of behavior, and each time the Pook came up, he was reversed and he represented a particular type of mental instability. I hadn't thought before of his shape-changing applying to mental/emotional things as well as physical changes, but this was clearly what he was about here.

Each time he came up, we were looking at a form of borderline personality disorder. From an energy point of view, people with this tend to go along ok, ok, ok, ok, just fine - and then boom! You get a surge of rage and of blaming of others, which often focuses on one person as the scapegoat for all their problems.

Usually the accusations made are not just misunderstandings but are a radical twisting of the real situation. Often people with this disorder are very intelligent, so this twisting can sound quite plausible to anyone who doesn't know the actual facts. When the person is under more stress (internal or external), the explosive parts usually are longer and more frequent.

So, what the Pook (reversed) was showing me was this energy pattern of shape changing from ok to "monster" back to ok and repeating indefinitely. To me, this opened up a whole new way of thinking about "shape changing".

46 The Friends

The Friends card — I now have an illustrator for the new book I'm working on, Every Day, Faery Wisdom. This is very exciting. I've been looking for someone and here was a great person to do it that I already know and love. I truly appreciate the opportunity to work with someoneI know that I can trust to share the vision and the energy of a project.

Also, I'm more clear about what is going on in my life, thanks to some in-depth conversations with friends—though it is still pretty much up in the air. Right now, I'm moving next door (to a friend's place!), and I'm not sure what I'll be doing or where I'll be going in the fall. Details, details!

What I'm working on, though, is the larger picture of what I want to do with the rest of my life, or at least the next several years of it. This is very much in the forefront of my mind. Today I expect to be discussing this stuff with two or three close friends, considering projects or other things we might be sharing later on—stuff like that.

What I'm really trying to do is to see the overall picture and the primary goals so I understand how the different projects fit within that framework. The Friends card reminds me that it isn't just my life, but that of friends entwined, all of us traveling in the same direction. It says, among other things, that there will always be support, both given and received. I'm reminded of the last line of the poem in the Friends section of the Faeries' Oracle book: "I never could have done this alone."