Kings in the Tarot

I think my previous post, Queens in Tarot, has inspired me to do the other court cards. As I said in that post, I have always struggled to find something to help the meanings sink into my brain, to find some point of reference. In my research, I did discover something that may have helped! Turns out that each of the court cards is associated with an element. This coupled with the suit of the court card provides the meaning for each one. The following is the elemental correspondences for each court card:

Kings - Earth

Queens - Water

Knights - Fire

Pages - Air

With this in mind, I have continued my research and have interpreted each King individually as well as the general meaning of the kings. 

General meaning of the Kings

Kings generally represent having a high regard for or great importance placed upon something. It also indicates success on the areas associated with each element. It can indicate that you are, or are being influenced by, a successful man who exhibits traits associated with each suit. As they are they are connected with the element of earth, they are also about being grounded in or practical about something. More generally, and for me, it refers to what you need to do in order to be successful. 

Specific card meanings

King of Wands: success through self-discipline and perseverance. 

As the earthy part of fire, these people embody 'practical will'. This means they are usually very passionate and have learnt how to direct this passion towards concrete results. They enjoy a physical challenge, but value the journey rather than the destination, their great patience allows them to wait until the right opportunity comes along. Relationships are usually approached in the same way and they are best suited to the Queen of Wands. They are confident, honest and straightforward in communication and their advice is to be taken on board as it is the result of their own hard work and practical effort. The lesson in the King of Wands is to harness their passion and will to create something tangible and to work on your self-discipline to gain lasting success. 

King of Cups: success through practical application of emotions and intuition.

This is the earthy part of water leading to creative discipline and the practical application of intuition and emotions. These men will feel their emotions more than the others, yet they will be very practical in the expression of them. Any emotions that don't serve them will be discarded as useless. They have great patience and sensitivity with a focus on their family. They are strong and calm, sentimental and compassionate with great perseverance and patience. They are best served in the caring profession, as they have a great depth and understanding. The lesson for this card is to have a more practical approach to your emotions and creativity for success. 

King of Swords: success through clarity of thought and having a clear plan; high regard for purposeful thought.

Someone told me once that this card indicates depression, and I used to think so but since then I have decided this is one interpretation I will rely on my intuition for, say it when I get the nudge so to speak. More specifically, the King of Swords is the earthy part of air leading to a practical application of thoughts. These people are logical and practical about their ideas and dreams and have a focus on purposeful thought - dreaming of fanciful things are not important to these people. They have a disciplined mind and combine their thoughts with practical action. They are excellent organisers and give sound advice based on personal experience and deep reflection. They long for a relationship based on intellect, as a meeting of minds, and believe that conversation is the best part of a relationship. The lesson in this card isto couple  clarity of thought with practical effort for success. 

King of Pentacles: success through slow, steady steps and practical effort.

This card is pure earth, meaning they have a focus on all things physical. They value physical action above all things and will show their emotions by buying things for those they love. Material possessions are a focus for them as they have learned that they make the journey through life easier. They are more focused on good service rather than value and will chose the silver service over the bistro every time. They are serious, conservative, reliable, grounded, hardworking and pragmatic, but can also be stubborn and territorial. Yet, they are easily rebalanced either through spending time in nature or eating good food. The lesson in this card is to put practical efforts into any project, emotional or physical, and don't give up!

This process for me has been very educational, I have realised the elemental link and connection between the cards and their suits. What is even better, I have realised my own disconnection to Earth and why that is, so yay me!! Definitely need to work with this element more......

*information based on that found in The Tarot Revealed, my own interpretations and conversations with others.

Working with Colour - Purple

Well, it's P week on the Pagan Blog Project and I thought I'd continue with the previous week's post and do another one on colour. This will focus on how I work with the colour and include some of the work of others, but as there seems to be a plethora of different uses I have just kept this post to what I use it for.

Purple is often associated with the Crown Chakra, but I see it in my Brow Chakra, despite many attempts to try and change it! I finally decided to stop fighting it and run with it, but now I just as often see indigo for the Brow so I tend to wait and see what happens on the day. Still, my Crown Chakra has and always will be white I guess. I wont go too closely into the Chakra other than to say that it governs the intuition, imagination, clairvoyance, dreams and visions/visualisation and purple can help in all these areas. In the tarot, purple is the colour of compassion (as in the Lovers), spirituality and visions. Inna Segal, in her book The Secret Language of the Body, states that purple helps to clear mental complexes and brings out leadership qualities. It can also help improve the connection between mind ,body and soul and attracts hope and success. On a physical level, purple helps boost the immune system, heal skin eruptions, rheumatism and bones, kidney, lung and stomach problems. It helps to relieve nervous tension, thus calming the heart and helping with blood pressure.

To work with purple, the easiest way is to wear it on or around the head, however, the location is not as important as intention when wearing of the colour. Purple socks will do just as good as a purple bandana if the intention is stated clearly! For physical healing, you can eat purple food, such as eggplant or beetroot, or visualise yourself inhaling the colour directly into the part of the body you want healed (this last is most effective while in a meditative state). Perhaps the easiest, and possibly the prettiest way to work with purple is to incorporate crystals, such as Amethyst or Purple Fluorite, into your healing regimen. Again, it is all about intention, so if you are having trouble seeing the big picture, with visualisation, clairvoyance and dreams or perhaps have constant sinus problems, then purple can help!

Working with colour: Orange

This week the Pagan Blog Project is up to 'O' and I thought it was about time I posted about one of my favourite colours! Orange... I did a bit of research into colours, their chakra correspondence and their energetic vibrations, a while ago and this is what I came up with:

Orange is associated with the Sacral Chakra, found a few inches below the navel. It is the centre of creativity, vitality, sensuality, appetites and desires. In the tarot, it represents passion, creativity and family connections. If you see orange a lot, it may be a message to further enhance these qualities in your life. It can, according to Inna Segal, indicate that shock or trauma is holding you back from moving forward in life and using orange can help bring up associated emotions for healing. On a physical level, it can help with digestive issues, breathing conditions and fertility. It also helps with fear and depression by creating optimism, enthusiasm, courage and determination. It helps to create bonds of love and connect you to your wisdom and intuition.

Orange clothes are a good way to utilise the energy of the colour. Orange directly on your Sacral chakra will help balance this chakra, however any orange clothing will do the trick!!

Wearing orange, particularly around the Sacral Chakra, can help to alleviate these issues and increase your vitality and optimism for life. You can also visualise breathing orange into your Sacral or Heart Chakra with the intention of healing any associated issues. You can also wear an orange crystal, such as a Carnelian or Orange Calcite, or eat more orange food. Remember, intention is key! Just ask that the orange clothing, food or crystal heal your ailment and trust in the universe to provide! 

There is a lot more to Orange than the above, I am sure, however, I find that it is great for increasing courage so when I am feeling a bit fearful, I wear it with the intention it increase my courage and allow it to do its work. There are a lot of changes going on in my life at the moment, so perhaps this is why I have been drawn to it for some time...

Norse Gods and Popular Culture

This is another synchronisitc post for both my journey and the Pagan Blog Project. I had been having trouble finding an N to write about, then this happened...

I was having a conversation with a friend the other day about comic books and characters and who created who etc etc, when he stated that Thor was created by Marvel Comics. I cleared my throat, all lady like and said "Well, the truth is that Thor has been around much longer than that. The Vikings 'created' Thor, not some writer with a good imagination!" Obviously, because he is a grown man and quite intelligent he knew this to be true and his comment was merely a slip of the tongue or perhaps he was differentiating the two characters, the real Norse God and the comic book hero. Which is fine, but it got me wondering... How many other people out there, kids especially, look at the comic version of Thor and Loki and whoever else is in it (I have as yet not ready any myself) and see them as 'make believe'? See them as characters some genius made up and decided to write stories about? I wonder how many people out there do not understand who Thor and Loki (etc) really are?
 

It also got me wondering, how much else in popular culture has been taken from the ancients and adapted to suit their purposes. I know Anne Rice uses the name Akasha (which i only recently learned is the sanscrit word for ether...), and the gods and goddesses in Supernatural are based upon deities from a plethora of pantheons, but exactly how deep does it go? Are people picking random symbols from a book they picked up at an occult store and running with it? How many other TV series' have the myths of the ancients interlaced with modern world ideas? It is intriguing to me, and what it means is that there is a lot more reading and viewing in store for me in the future. I don't think I'll make it my life's passion to discover them all, after all I have other things I need to do, but it might be something else I draw on when viewing new series and movies...
 

It is interesting to me that the knowledge of the ancients is right there for the next generation to access, should they decide to make the connections and dig a little deeper into the name of their favourite comic book character...

M is for Meditation

This is a very meaningful topic for me… Mostly because I don’t do it nearly enough! Despite universal nudges that would make Ghandi himself frustrated……

I am a very practical person, and I like to understand the purpose of an activity, whether it be sport or cleaning, I like there to be a reason for me to do it. And the meaning needs to be on a relatively deep level, for example I do not usually like walking, even though I know it is good for my health, unless I have somewhere to go. A destination, other than to return home empty-handed, helps me to focus and get the job done.

What I find with meditation, is that if it is undirected, I do not see the point and often decide to do something else. This results in me sitting down to meditate perhaps once a week, at best… I know there are heaps of meditations on YouTube that I could do, but I often find it hard to do something if I do not know what to expect (which often blocks my psychic development!!), a fear of the unknown is one I have to deal with in this life and I have as yet not discovered how to… It occurs to me while writing this that meditation may be the very thing I need!! Weird, huh?!?! Hardly… anyway, I digress…

So, what is the purpose of meditation? What are the benefits that I can employ in my everyday life?

Without doing any actual research, my first thought is that it gives you time out from your life and the stress of holding down a job and a house (which for a single childless woman is not really hard). This is probably where I get stuck. I don’t really have any stresses, and if I do I tend to deal with it in a positive way anyway. I tend to be very organised and practical with deadlines etc so I rarely get stuck last minute… well, that is if I don’t put things off until the last minute, but then I just tell myself I put myself here, quit your bitching and get yourself out!  

What about the physical benefits? I have had to do some research about this section, as my first draft was just ignorant ramblings about the possibility of it helping with sleep and metabolism and stuff. I really wanted to know so I did it. This is what I found.

Benefits:

1. Reduces stress and anxiety.
2. Slows brain functions (the article does not say why this is a good thing, but I think that anything having a rest has got to be good!).
3. Increases focus.
4. More creativity: through open-monitoring, or guided, meditation.
5. More compassion and empathy: apparently meditation activates the amygdala, the part of the brain that processes emotion, one experiment found.
6. Improves memory.
7. Improves cognitive processes: through more grey matter, which leads to more positive emotions, longer-lasting emotional stability and heightened focus. Apparently, meditation reduces  the effects of age-related damage to grey matter and can reduce the decline of cognitive functioning (link to a reduction in Alzheimer’s?).
8. Boosts immunity: Meditation apparently activates disease fighting genes (recent research) which can help protect against pain, high blood pressure and rheumatoid arthritis.
9. Balances hormone levels: relaxation is linked to higher levels of feel-good hormones such as serotonin.
10. Helps with fertility issues.
11. Stress is linked to decreased digestion and immunity, so perhaps relaxation/meditation can help boost the digestive system and metabolism leading to weight loss?!?!
12. Relieves irritable bowel syndrome.
13. Acts as an anti-inflammatory.
14. Calmness – thoughts occur but are the witness, while in a stressed or ‘ordinary’ mind the thought is the boss. This reduces reaction to situations and allows you to sail through difficult situations. 
15. Sharpens the mind through focusing and expanding through relaxation.

There are literally hundreds of others, one website boasted 100 benefits! I have listed the ones I feel are of benefit to me, perhaps not now but in the future! 

But what about the spiritual benefits? Research suggests that it helps you to discover your true self, sharpen your mind, develop your intuition and expand your consciousness, which I can attest to. I have had some awesome experiences meditating that have helped me on my spiritual journey. Most recently I lit my God and Goddess candle and asked them to be present with me during the meditation and I just sat in their energy, getting to know them and how they interact with me on a physical level, conversing with them to seek clarification on a few topics which they happily gave me. For me, after this experience, I realised that meditation is a way to increase your energy levels to converse and merge with deity, spirit guides and perhaps deceased loved one to get messages or to simply honour them and increase your own connection to ad relationship with them. For me now, meditation is more about connecting with deity and my own spiritual nature and reminding myself that it is a part of who I am. Still, I don’t meditate nearly as much as I should, which is a major issue of neglect on my part, as I am sure that I will feel better if I do meditate every day. I am not sure what it is that prevents me, fear probably – fear of the unknown, fear that nothing happens and probably most importantly fear that something does and I will not believe it (as I am also want to do). Or maybe I am just thinking too much about it and not doing it enough… Maybe I should just sit and breathe deeply and open my mind to the possibilities of it all…… I feel, excluding the obvious physical benefits, it will help increase my connection to deity and my true spiritual self so I need to make a commitment of at least 15 minutes a day. This can be part of my daily ritual to help strengthen my spiritual self and help her to come out more. I know when I did make it a daily habit, part of my routine (even if it was as an escape from a relatively bad situation), I felt more confident, aware and compassionate in my daily life. Perhaps I can get her back, or maybe even evolve to a better me? Sounds like a lovely idea… 

Will I keep the commitment though???? Perhaps I start with 5 minutes a day……

Pagan Lightworker?

I have been thinking about this a lot in the last weeks, since I knew L was coming up... Can u mix the two ideas of pagan and lightworker together? I know I, and anyone else with similar ideas may be branded with a fluffy white bunny tattoo, but I still feel there is merit in the idea of a pagan lightworker...

The idea of a lightworker is someone who has reincarnation to raise the vibration of the Earth and being it Ito a new age of love and sharing. This is a very nice idea, especially as the Earth definitely needs it. 

For me, a pagan is someone whose spirituality is based around the observances of the season, honouring the elements and the Gods and goddesses. To me, being pagan means protecting and nurturing the earth, allowing my vibrations to be in sync (as much as possible) with the earth and honouring the existence of a supreme creation force manifested as the male and female inherent in all things. 

To combine the two is to be someone who is working with the earth and nature to bring the vibrations of the inhabitants of the planet to a hover level of love and sharing... It is to use the elements and what we know about deity, the universe and existence itself to inform and educate and help people to be better people for themselves and he planet... To me this is a noble idea, and the combining of Paganism and the term Ligtworker seems a nice fit... 

If I had to label myself I think I would use this term as it accurately describes the direction of my beliefs and what I hope to achieve on a grander scale at this very time. 'Fluffy' as it may be, it feels right to me and it is not harming any one for me to believe this, so as I will it...... xx

Working through the Elements: Air

Something struck me the other night, as I was heading to the back door to let my cat, Eddie Treebird, outside for what I think was the third time that night. All the windows and doors were closed and there is no real draft in my house. As I approached the backdoor, a sliding door with curtains hanging in front of it, the curtains were moving as if there was a draft or breeze coming from somewhere. The first thing I thought was ‘ghost’ but this was too clichéd even for me, so I stopped and waited to see what happened. By this time I was in front of the curtains and the draft that I had caused by walking across the room moved them even more and I was unable to determine the origin of the draft.

It occurred to me then that perhaps the initial cause of the movement was me. As I moved through the air in the room, it pushed forward ahead of me and caused the draft both ahead of and behind me, as a boat gliding across the lake. It got me thinking about the element of Air, that it is all around us even when it is not moving, it is still there. Sounds ridiculous and a bit ‘yea, der!’ but these things sometimes have to be learned and understood through personal experience… I think I took it for granted that when I breathed in my lungs would fill up with air and I would be able to then breathe out, it never occurred to me to think where Air came from or where it went. It never occurred to me to think about what happens when a person walks through Air that exists in the room or atmosphere (cause that is where it is), if there is an impact or not. I know people refer to the ‘butterfly effect’ and I think I understood it, but never really got it until that moment.

Air is all around us, (thank you Captain Obvious!) even as we sit it rests against our skin, our clothes, our hair. As we step we part it with our feet, we move it with our breath, we break it when we reach for something. The interesting thing is that it just seems to flow with what is happening in the environment. It does not force the issue, it merely accepts what is happening to it and acquiesces, allowing the changes to its structure and position to happen, and then remoulding itself based on the new information.

I have a new found respect Air, its fluidity, its adaptability, its availability. I also think that I have begun a relationship with this element that I will cultivate and look deeper into as I am sure, when looking at the changes the universe is guiding me to make, that I can learn something about the traits it possesses that will help me move forward, both spiritually and physically. I think I also like the idea of reacting to things when they happen rather than beforehand, living with the impositions or restrictions of others and not letting it ruin my own integrity, being able to adapt to situations while not changing who I am and how I work, being able to live in the moment and be changeable in a positive sense.

This is what Air is for me at this stage. It may change (and most likely will), but I am willing to work with Air in order to gain the strength I need in this most unpredictable time I now find myself in. It will be an interesting journey……