So, here we are 2014, holiday season at hand and I make the crazy volunteer bid to write a Yule blog hop!
I am not sane. Surely, nobody this busy, of sane mind would participate in a blog hop.
Well, here I am doing one. Go figure.
So, to begin with, this is one of those Tarot posts. Because, well, it's a Tarot Yule Blog Hop.
The idea of the hop is to do a reading for the season, with several distinct ideas about gifting. Something I feel VERY strongly at sharing solely based on the gifts I have been given repeatedly and honorifically again and again and I am so grateful for it. This blog hop is an opportunity for me to share that feeling of blessed gratitude. After all, THAT is what gifting is all about.
Maya Angelou, now resting in peace, left us with this gift of gratitude;
“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
Maya Angelou
If in giving you a gift, I can fill your heart with love and your eyes with tears, then I have successfully shared the great gift of gratitude that I live on a daily basis.
I know that as you read my blogs, I'm found discussing all sorts of things, and I don't think I've done a spread here before, but today, I gift you this spread.
If you're a newbie to my blog, welcome. You can read my Tarot profile by clicking here (although it is out of date). The rest of you, carry on reading, we're going to see what Melody has to share on this wonderful issue.
Here is the spread in question.
And today, Melody is using the Gilded Tarot, my favourite deck from Ciro Marchetti.
Here are the cards...
“What gift would you give the world if you could?”
The Three of swords. A card much feared and hated by many because it expresses the difficult to deal with energies of sadness and loss. The gift of this card is the lesson of freedom that comes from sharing one's sorrow and embracing it by transforming it into love. The gift of acceptance that this card brings embraces the idea of coming to grips with life, no matter the difficulty, so that one can move forward, solid, loving and healing. We are creators, without embracing all of our emotions, we leave our strengths and solidity behind.
So, I give the World the gift of Acceptance.
“What gift would you want from the World?”
The Fool. New beginnings, new adventure, new ideas, new, new, new... Freedom means that every day is an opportunity for changing that which has gone before. We are creators, every day we can recreate our entire world in our own image. Whatever we wish to see in this world, that is what we will see. The Gift I would want from the world; the ability to take advantage of the freedom to start anew.
So the gift I would want from the world is Freedom.
“What gift have you gotten that has given you joy?”
The Six of Cups. This is a card about blessings and plenty. Memories of great joy and bliss and contentment. Sunshiny afternoons and green pastures, stretching lazily in the sun like a cat. The gift of joy given to me through these cards shows in this card. I feel the warm loving energy of all that is, and all that ever was in this card. And I have absolutely been living the gift of bliss that Melody has taught me through these cards. Today, more especially than any day previously, and the best part of it is the perpetual perfection of it's threat to continue to always get better and better as time goes on.
So, the gift is my commitment to seeking bliss and the outstanding gratitude for the blessings I am receiving as a direct result.
I must pause in the reading of the cards here, as I starting this reading on Tuesday of the week preceding Yule. Before I read the following two cards, I experienced a personal drama in my life of epic proportions, the sort of which I have come to know herald a major change in my physical direction and pathway.
And so it is with Yule, each year. It brings the end of a cycle and begins a new one. Every year is a gift. I didn't always feel that way. Once upon a time my most dreaded time of the year was Christmas. I have spent so so so many years in pain and in tears over the awfulness that Christmas has always been. A time of careful planning and ridiculous expectations all so that people who don't spend time with each other usually can get together and catch up on what they're missing in these other people's lives.
I end a year of working with the power of myself with the destruction of piece of my heart that I can never get back. Trust is like that. It takes a lifetime to build and single moment to dash it to pieces. When such things happen, it is a message from the Universe that your time here is done. That this phase is over and it is time to move on. There is melancholy, pain even sometimes in such growth, but I have learned to trust Melody longtime hence to guide me along a golden pathway towards the spirit of love and light that we all are and can become in this lifetime.
So even before I read these last two cards, I experience a profound sense of gratitude for this lesson in the dying days of the year. And I step forward with a sense of reticence but great joyful gratitude that the coming gift of a new path is before me.
I return you now to my regularly scheduled blog hop.
"What gift have you given that has brought you joy?"
Three of Wands. Here is a card that denotes a phase that requires forward movent and growth, a journey of spiritual significance awaiting he who embarks. It is inspired, and offers a promise of completion worthy of the voyage. This speaks to the gift that I have been given in learning how to release the past in my existence and to maintain my focus on the present, even through some pretty trying situations. Knowing from my experience that there is always an adventure on the other side of every moment and being able to share that adventure with people through my cards, brings me great joy.
So the gift that has brought me the greatest joy is my ability to gift the adventure of life.
What is one last thing you'd like to share this season?
Seven of Swords. Here the energy is that of one walking away with the best energies, and there is the remorseful sadness that not energies will move forward, perhaps lost, perhaps never again to be seen. But the sun is coming through the clouds and even without those things, it's going to be okay. This card in response to this question reminds me of the Bible Verse/Pete Seeger Song Ecclesiastes 3/Turn Turn Turn.
So the gift is one of seasonal renewal. As the year ends and the new year begins, go forward in peace knowing that all is well, and everything happens in its own time, whatever the reason, t'is but for a season.
Happy Yule.
