There’s a lot going on right now.

The eclipse season in March is the parenthesis around so many shifts it seems unlikely anyone would keep up with them all. This blog will attempt to track the inspirational convergence of many of my loves this lunar cycle. Poetry. Face Up Tarot. Ritual.

The New moon heralds beginnings and endings. Eclipses amplify this energy in the fluid sign of Pisces while the ruthless curiosity of the rogue planet – retrograde Mercury dances through it all. When I thought about how to honor this energy in my life, all the starts, the seedlings, it seemed senseless to try to keep it tidy and separate. Instead, I’ll let my thoughts do what the planets suggest and blend it all, like so many vegetables.

What is arising for you this eclipse season?

If I had to pick just one, convergence would be my word for the significance of this new moon solar eclipse. This eclipse where, according to Chani Nicolas, the mer-planets reign and the rest of us explore our relationship to emotional depths, dissolving into the great mystery or despairing of it and wanting out.

I’ve experienced this shift as creativity in overdrive, feeling an unreal and immediate empathic connection with people, their struggles, and their art. Glee. Worry. Despair. Elation. In quick successions like a spirit train made of muck and things that want to expand. Quickly. This expansion looks like my awareness that even though March is really busy and April is set to be busy as well, there doesn’t seem to be an end to the creative urge.

 

words (and wonder)

 

Every day in April I will write a poem.

Last year I participated for the first time in something called National Poetry Writing Month; who knows why it took me that long. I’ve done National Novel Writing Month like seven times, and I’m a terrible novelist. I hesitate even to use the word.

But I’ve been a poet from the beginning. I’d never had the courage to write as many poems as I can. I would choke on my own words, on my fear. Something about expressing myself fully terrified me. It still does. But last year, I broke down and wrote a bunch of poems in April. And this year has been even more fearless than last year, so I can’t wait to see what will be born now that I’ve already cultivated a writing habit well before April, writing every day without fail. Now that lately I express myself a metric ton.

Poems were on the brain when I saw AJ Cunningfolk’s blog piece on Poetry Inspired Tarot last week. I sort of flipped out. The post had all of the things I’m obsessed with right now (and most of the time): poetry and face up tarot. Poetry tills the wild garden of words and stirs us. Face up tarot cultivates the language of self, intuition, and personal experience.

AJ writes this about one of the poems in her piece “Her words make me think of an energetic combination of the Hanged One and Tower cards in the Major Arcana of the Tarot. For me, she describes something coming undone, chaotic but utterly still.” Here she is consciously selecting a card that she associates with the feeling of the poem. This intuitive process is where the magick is.

The process of noting the connections between seemingly unrelated things – as is done when we pull a card face up – mimics the synchronicity and oneness that seems to run through everything all the time. We are most able to make note these connections when we are aware. With poetry inspired tarot we engage poems, we cultivate the language of inquiry and tarot, we put symbols to the unnameable and therefore create conditions to make contact with the unconscious, with art, with the highest consciousness.

 

darkness and emergence

 

For this week’s new moon I gave Cunningfolk’s #poetryinspiredtarot a go.

I found a poem and used it to construct a spread. The poem explored darkness and solitude and reminded me of the new moon, the dark moon, the end/beginning of cycles. It was short and murky. Built to explore depths. The spread I created turned out much the same way. I used the Mary-El Tarot and Margarete Petersen Tarot, and I pulled some cards face up and some face down. I asked five questions based on the themes expressed in the poem. The interpretation follows.

 

 

Feather Spread

 

What’s happening now?
I pulled this card face up from the entire Mary-El deck.

Who is the witness – the part of me that exists outside of my story?
Pulled face down from the Mary-El court cards.

Where or how might I try my wings?
I pulled this card face down from the entire Petersen deck.

What is my story about flight?
I pulled this card face up from the Mary-El trumps or major arcana cards.

What might darkness have to say to me? What can darkness teach me?
I pulled this card face down from the “difficult cards” from the Mary-El deck.

 

What’s happening now? – 7 Wands

 

Identity exploded. Energy ignited. A dance with fear and fun. The recognition of risk. If I locked eyes with a wolf in the wild, what might I feel? Terror? A desire to flee? A welling up survival extinct? A readiness to rise to the occasion whatever that meant? My gaze was transfixed on that of this wolf. What’s happening now is the rush of energy associated with purposefully transfixing my gaze, focusing my attention on a task, purposefully setting down some identities and claiming others.

 

Who is the witness? – King Wands

 

The part of me that that exists outside of my story is the part that fits comfortably into social systems can be generous with energy and feels a level of attainment when it comes to spiritual matters. The part of me that wants attention and is willing to take on the extra work and responsibility to garner it. The part of me that remembers I always have choice when it comes to how much energy to expend.

 

Where or how might I try my wings? – King Coins (Pentacles)

 

Owning mastery of the physical details. Tending my body. Tending my touch. Setting down the lofty and spiritual for the tangible. Minding the bottom line. Ending day to day habits that don’t serve. The abundance of Kings begs the question, what is it time for me to graduate from?

 

What is my story about flight? – The Chariot

 

I pulled this card face up before I knew what question I was asking. I noticed its relationship to the seven wands above and put it back into the stack figuring it might have significance in the spread once I decided on the questions. Almost as soon as I knew I would ask this question, I knew this card would be the answer. I didn’t even have a logical reason why. In fact, it didn’t make sense initially. My story about flight is that there is risk associated with raising energy and doing more. To compensate I may look for support, I may grasp for control; I may rely heavily on the structure. Or I may find myself carried away by my expansion, charging without care for order.

 

What can darkness teach me? – 10 Swords

 

Darkness teaches that there’s ruin without rest. To respect my limitations. To deconstruct the thoughts that don’t serve.

 

Convergence

This spread showed me that this eclipse season I would do well to put some old habits to bed. Even though I want to run with the wolves, fast as a shadow, I was born with a finicky body and brain that need my constant love and attention. If I don’t steward my energy and body, who will?

 

What is arising for you this eclipse season?

Answer in the comments

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Featured decks:
The Mary-El Tarot by Marie White Schiffer Publishing, Ltd 2012,
Margarete Petersen Tarot AGM Urania 2014