Namaste
Excerpted from an entry in my dream journal from September 2007. I don’t remember the dream, but I do remember the feeling it gave me. Take from it what you will.
What I’ve realized is that God was tired of being alone, and fragmented into unnumbered ‘me’s’. Each ‘me’ is the same ‘me’, and is exactly the same person when it arrives into consciousness (reality). The unnumbered circumstances that cause it to become an ‘individual’ create unnumbered ‘individuals’ from the same starting place – the same ‘me’.
This is why there are so many different personalities. We recognize the differences that make each of us unique. But we are all, in fact, exactly the same ‘me’.
Each new life that comes into consciousness is God experiencing everything again. Each relationship is God getting to know Himself. God does it over and over again so that each experience is fresh and new. We desire to fill ourselves with love because God desires to love Himself. When we love another, we are loving ourselves.
The twenty-two Majors are the twenty-two aspects of God through which each new life is each filtered as it comes into consciousness.
The fifty-eight Minors are all the circumstances and events that make us who we are as children. This is a further filtering, but certainly not the end of it. Each card combination is yet a another layer of filters that refines us as we mature into adults, grow old and eventually die.
There is only one consciousness. If you sit quietly in meditation, go deep inside your awareness, and find that still center that Observes, you have found it.
When you open your eyes to see, God is looking out of them.
Making Friends With a New Deck
A little more than a week ago, I posted about the experience of trimming my Druidcraft deck. It was this comment to that post that got me thinking. It is true that one of the reasons people like to trim their decks, is that it becomes part of the bonding process of familiarizing yourself with a new deck. However many readers don’t want to trim all their decks. Many only trim the ones that they feel can be improved by trimming, because of the cards being too large to use or having excessively large borders that ‘drown out’ the images.
There are many ways to make friends with a new deck. The simplest way is to spend time with the cards, just looking at them individually and listening to them tell their stories. Some people start a journal, or a new section of their existing journal, to record meditations done with individual cards. Some folk sleep with the deck under their pillow.
I usually sleep with the deck on my night-table for a while. Occasionally one or more cards will enter my dreams and talk to me. This practice started when I got my very first Tarot deck, the Robin Wood Tarot.
This was before I learned about Gate cards, and entering cards in meditation. I suppose that the dream visitations were spontaneous versions of these techniques. It doesn’t happen as often as it used to. But when it does, I always make a note of the dreams I have.
There are many other ways to bond with your deck. Aside from pulling a daily card and journaling, you can write stories, songs and poems. You can create art based on the colors and emotions that you feel from a particular card. You can carry a card with you as you go about your business for a day, and pull it out occasionally to see what it might have to tell you about the days events as they unfold.
But most importantly, don’t forget to journal whatever experiences, feelings, thoughts and idea you may have while bonding with a new deck. They will be helpful later when you are using your deck in your practice, whether reading for yourself or others.
How do you make friends with a new deck?
Star Light, Star Bright
I think my favorite Major Arcana card is the Star. Most of the decks I’ve seen have lovely Star cards. My all-time favorite might be the Star from the Hudes deck. (I say ‘might’ because my favorite ‘anything’ changes according to my mood and experience.)
This card strongly evokes a recurring dream of mine. When I see this card I get a very strong memory of that dream – the way it feels… the sounds, the colors, the sensations… almost as if I’m having the dream again. Tarot cards and dreams have always had a close relationship in my life, but this one is as close to any one dream as a card can get – at least so far.
This has affected the way I read the Star when I see it. I know many people see the Moon as representing dreams and the unconcious, but for me the Moon has more to do with instinct and heeding your inner voice. The Star has grown to mean dreams to me, especially ones that are more like memories than fantasy. The ones that mean something and connect to something difficult to access in waking life.
