The Sun in Reverse card popped out and I feel called to talk about this card just by itself. Something preventing you from seeing the good. Even when things are tough there are still things to be grateful for. The clouds are just layers that cover the sun from time to time, but it still shines above it. Just like the clouds, our thoughts and feelings come and go. Our thoughts can change quickly, and we can go through all the feelings and still know at our core that we are the sun. It is as useless to attach to troubled thoughts as it is to hold on to a cloud. We can potentially create our own storms this way. Maybe send your thoughts to the wind. Let the wind carry and transmute your problems and worries away and then let go. Focus on solutions not problems. Yes, this is easier said than done. But its ok to practice as long as it takes and be nice to yourself in the meantime.
The King of Swords in Reverse is indicating a perceived lack of strength or authority. Maybe this is showing up in your life as a person that makes you uncomfortable in a way that feels authoritative. This could also indicate a lack of order, self-discipline or self-control. As these are very general readings, and these are private, I will ask you, where does this feel like it is showing up? The solution is you. The High Priestess and the Hierophant are both very powerful cards of personal power. The cards want you to remind yourself who you are. The High Priestess is focusing on spiritual enlightenment, divine knowledge and wisdom. This is an area of your life that the universe is asking you to focus on right now. The Hierophant wants you to remember that honoring tradition is done best when you honor yourself and your personal beliefs first. It is okay to challenge the norm. It is okay if other people don’t understand what you are doing. Sometimes the best course of action is just going for it and following your heart. You can create a life that aligns with who you are at any time.
Against the Grain – You want birds to be able to fly underwater. You want love to trump power. You want humanity to relate to each other as equals and to recognize the sacredness in you and in the world around you. You want to unleash the beauty that hides in even the ugliest of scenes or sentiments. You want to make possible what others say cannot be. You are a radical dreamer, a sacred rebel, and you bring light of a more positive future for this world.
However, this can have its burdens. Deep within you may feel that you don’t really fit in with the rest of the world. Perhaps your sense of how things can be and how they really are, is so different to the smaller minds or more fearful hearts of many others that you are rarely received for all that you offer. This might make you feel frustrated, thwarted or lonely at times.
The universe so loves you for your unusual take on tings, for the quirkiness in you that dares to honor that which is different and renders the impossible, possible. You must never, ever lose your unusual ways and become dry, serious appropriate and conventional – not even for appearance’s sake – for you would lose your essence. You are here to show that life is about so much more than conventional success!
This oracle comes with a special message for you. You are someone who lives and breathes in the depths of creative waters. You need to lose yourself to the flow of music, nature, dreams, imagination and fantasy, through art and literature, meditation and dance and in sensual surrender to the sacred waters of the ocean, the river, the lake – or the bathtub!
Death – The eternal cycle begins here. ‘Tis not the end though I may pass in the night. I get to do my time over. Altough you may get a fright!
Many pagans believed that death was the beginning of the cycle of life. When you think about it, most people consider the act of ‘birth’ to be the beginning of the life cycle – we are born, we live and we die and, depending on your beliefs, you may get to go round again. Instead, pagan cultures see death as the beginning of a whole new adventure – the place where your soul gets to choose where it incarnates, why and what it wants to experience. Then and only then, does it get born into a body that lives and eventually dies, before returning to ride a new cycle.
Halloween is a celebration of death as a part of life. As humans are conscious beings, we know about death and many are afraid and uncomfortable about it. Halloween illuminates the universal truth that all of us will die, just as all of us were born, so to be fearful of that end process is fairly pointless. Halloween asks us instead to make friends with death (just as we seem friendly with birth) and to not allow our fears and grief to bring us unnecessary pain.
Do not be afraid if you pull the Death card as it simply means that something is falling away, or will do so, so you can begin strongly afresh. There is great power in this clearing. If you pull this card at Halloween particularly, the message is stronger still and you should actively celebrate this new beginning.
Barmbrack – A pea, a cloth, a coin, a ring and stick within a loaf of speckled sweetness. Slice it and eat it. A glimpse of my fate’s completeness.
Not quite a cake and not quite a bread, barmbrack is a sweet loaf, larger than a typical bread loaf, baked with flour, sugar, salt and dried fruits such as raisins. The making of barmbrack is an Irish tradition that still stands around Samhain (Halloween). The person baking the loaf would be sure to set the intention for love, truth and synergy whilst preparing. Inside the dough, a number of special objects are hidden and baked into the loaf.
The objects are used as a kind of random oracle – each one has a particular meaning which represents the fate of the person who found it in their slice! The traditional objects include a coin, a pea, a stick, a ring and a small piece of cloth like muslin. Some other additions, made in more modern times were religious medals.
Should your slice of brack contain a coin, this would indicate prosperity and good luck. The pea unfortunately meant that no marriage would occur for you that year, yet finding the ring means marriage is certain. The stick – to be avoided at all costs – indicated disputes and unhappiness and finding the cloth meant bad luck and little money ahead.
When you pull the Barmbrack card, it indicates a curiosity to know what is ahead but it’s important to balance that with the now – after all, we have the tools to change our future should we choose. The sweet synergy of barmbrack – all the ingredients including the objects are more complete and powerful together, than they are individually, should encourage you to seek your own sweet spot.
What do you feel? – There are many opinions around you. Some are helpful but others are distracting you from your truth. Although it can be helpful to hear the thoughts of others, when it all comes down to it, you will have to come to your own decision. Do you know how unique you are? How your path is your path to be chosen lived and created – only by you? Someone else cannot be the source of your decision-making power without negative repercussions for both of you in the long run.
This oracle comes to you because you have become swept up in thinking things through. You have been thinking about which way to go with a matter of importance and you have got a bit stuck in the logic of the decision-making process. Sometimes we have to accept that any path is a path forward and if it is not the best path, we can change our approach later on if needed. If we are slightly off-base with a decision, life will often shift and move to guide us back on track. We don’t have to be perfect. In fact, there is rarely ever a perfect choice to be made – just some choice that feel more heart honoring than others. Sometimes we can only really know in hindsight if we made the best choice possible in that moment. At the time of decision-making, we only really have our internal wisdom to rely upon. And that is all that we need.
The oracle of What do you feel? Is telling you there is no need to punish or traumatize yourself with possible choices. Just making a choice will set things in motion. The best way to catalyze the situation you are in and bring about healing change, stimulate your creative juices and find a more inspired, energized and enjoyable approach to your life, is to just make a choice based on what you feel right now. Not based on anyone else’s feelings. Just yours. So ask yourself – what do I feel right now? And go from there.