Deck: The DruidCraft Tarot
Spread: Card of the Day
Date: Wed Sep 18 23:15:35 EDT 2019


Today's Card
NINE of SWORDS (Upright)

KEYWORDS

• Sorrow • Anguish • Mental cruelty

Ornament

Meaning   Finding this card in a reading signifies mental anguish and suffering. It refers to those very darkest periods in our lives when we experience the deepest sorrow. These times almost always involve relationships and our feelings of love, and so this card may indicate the torment we go through when a love affair or marriage ends, or when we suffer bereavement or are separated in some way from our partner. The card refers not so much to the event itself but to our experience of it: to this ‘dark night of the soul’ that we find ourselves in. We may suffer from insomnia or nightmares, or find ourselves unable to think clearly, or to shake off fear and anxiety. Our sense of isolation or solitude may be intense, and we might find it impossible to gain any sense of hope.

Despite these feelings, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Nines signify intensity but also completion. Just as the rigours of winter give way to the light and warmth of spring, so the period you are going through will come to its natural completion, and you will enter a brighter phase of your life. Alternatively, the card may indicate the dangers of using your mental powers cruelly. A sharp mind can sometimes wound unintentionally.

Reverse meaning   You may be struggling with feelings of shame or oppression. Someone might be using you as a scapegoat, or you might be the victim of political or racial prejudice. How you respond to this is up to you, and finding the card reversed can indicate emerging from a period of difficulty, and finding yourself in an improving situation. Alternatively, you may have begun a deliberate exploration of your deepest fears, which will allow you the opportunity for real transformation.



Presented by The DruidCraft Tarot app from The Fool's Dog.

Deck: Dark Goddess Tarot
Spread: Card of the Day
Date: Thu Sep 19 05:45:37 EDT 2019


Today's Card
Eight of Air ~ Crow Mother (Reversed)

Hopi Goddess of Initiation

Take responsibility to break through restriction.

The Hopi Crow Mother (Angwusnasomtaka) is revered as the mother of all Kachinas, the spirits that make up the natural world—spirits of living beings as well as the ancestors who have become part of nature. Kachinas have powers of rainfall, protection, and healing that the people desire, while they enjoy prayer feathers, corn pollen, and respect. Hopi rituals are mutual gift-giving ceremonies which preserve harmony in the world.

Crow Mother appears on the mesas at the first full moon of spring, initiating the yearly Powamu ceremony of purification and renewal. She comes from the San Francisco Mountains carrying a basket full of bean sprouts to the village, symbolizing new life for the community. When she comes, she sings the song of the Kachinas and their coming to this land.

Crow Mother teaches the proper way to live in community. She presides over the initiation rites of Hopi children at the age of nine or ten, instructing them in the ways of the people. She reveals the secret that the mysterious and powerful Kachinas who appear among them are their elders, masked and costumed. Shown behind Crow Mother are her whips made from the blades of the yucca plant. They stand between her and the child’s return home. The children do not yet know that home will not be the same, because they will have changed. The initiate will be whipped, four strokes, the only time in their lives the children are ever beaten. They must face their fear, they must face surprising pain, they must accept knowledge and the shattering of their childhood illusions. When they do, they are rewarded with a prayer feather and a meal. Then the new young adults are reunited with their community and welcome to join the sacred kiva societies.

When Crow Mother appears:

You are not strengthened by remaining isolated.

To step out of a stuck situation, you need to step up. Face what has been holding you back. Recognize the truth when you hear it. Self-centered and childish fancies impede your participation in a larger world.

Learn the lessons offered by the situation. It will take some discipline, but your future need not be colored by old disappointment or current disillusionment.

Create a prayer stick. Find a stick on a walk. Wrap it with colored yarn, using from one to four colors, repeating your intention with each winding. Tie on stones, shells, and feathers. Give the prayer stick to the earth and sky by leaving it outside in a special place. Leave it, walk away, and do not look back. Trust your prayer will be heard.



Presented by Dark Goddess Tarot app from The Fool's Dog.

Deck: Dark Goddess Tarot
Spread: Card of the Day
Date: Fri Sep 20 04:23:13 EDT 2019


Today's Card
Ace of Earth ~ Gaia (Upright)

Greek Goddess of the Earth

The earth gives birth to giants. Time to grow.

Inseparable from her element, Gaia rises from the earth. She eyes the sky and holds up her hands to bless the children around her. Arising from primeval Chaos, the earth of the ancient Greeks is a disk topped by the dome of heaven with the pit of Tartaros below, and the seas and mountains upon her breast.

Gaia is the Mother of All, for everything in nature comes from her flesh, whether animal, tree, or rock. She is the mother of the gods as well. They descend from her union with another elemental from the dawn of creation, Ouranos, the sky above. Gaia is fertility, and cannot help but bring forth children. She is nature, and cannot help but desire life for them.

It is this last, her having primary loyalty to her children over her mate, that causes conflict with the heavenly gods. Ouranos, in his fear of being supplanted, imprisons several of her children within her womb, causing her extreme pain. After she helps her son Kronos overthrow Ouranos for his oppression, the son betrays her and does the same as the father. She helps another son step up, Zeus, who releases the Titans from her body but confines them to Tartaros in his fear of their strength. Gaia then mates with Tartaros and produces tribes of terrible giants and monsters. These children rise to fight against the upstart and his friends. Gaia supports and bears them all. She does not stop providing life, no matter the circumstances.

Thereafter the young gods name themselves Olympians and claim all powers as their own. But no one, immortal or not, can control or be apart from Gaia’s primal being. She provides the place, the means, and the power for all earthly life to happen. As she alone knows all that takes place upon her body, it is she who whispers deep wisdom to the ancient oracles.

When Gaia appears:

Seek Gaia’s wisdom in nature. Hold stones in your hands. Listen to the stirring of leaves and the play of water. Watch the flight of birds. Go to sacred places. If she does not answer in a pertinent or meaningful way, you may need a different question or approach. You may need to give it time. When you practice, you learn what works.

Embracing your life is not a one-time task. For best results, keep your arms open and keep going. Be brave enough to work on your big dream.

Make a vow to make manifest the next idea that contains a seed of something good. It doesn’t have to be the greatest or only idea you will ever have. Show you are serious about making things happen, and they will.

Honor the source of your resources. Work to strengthen and repair your connections and relationships where necessary. Without access to resources, you cannot get anywhere.



Presented by Dark Goddess Tarot app from The Fool's Dog.

Deck: The Druid Oracles
Spread: Card of the Day
Date: Fri Sep 20 05:48:31 EDT 2019


Today's Card
Wren (Reversed)

Drui-en

Pronunciation: Droo-y-en

keywords
Humility • Cunning • God

The card shows a wren holding a feather in its beak, as it guards its nest filled with eggs. Tradition calls the wren's nest the "Druid's House." A bolt of lightning represents Taranis, the bull-god of thunder and lightning, the oak tree and the wren. The Ogham sign in the stone is of Duir, the oak.

Upright Meaning   Drui-en allows us to glimpse the beauty of God or Goddess in all things. He tells us that "small is beautiful," and that self-realization lies not in grandiosity or apparent power, but in humility, gentleness and subtlety. Cunning, if tempered with humor and good intent, is a way of achieving great things with an economy of effort, and a rational and honest use of the achievements of others.

Reversed Meaning   This could mean that you need to look at whether your humility and gentleness actually render you invisible to others. Are they your way of defending yourself from life and from others, rather than facing life and its difficulties? Perhaps you also need to look at how you use your cunning, your native wit. It is easy for the habit of building on the work of others to become a dishonest exploitation of others' achievements, just as it is easy for cunning to become malign rather than benign. Remember that the story of the wren and the eagle can also be interpreted in a way that sees the wren as a cheeky and dishonest "upstart" who naively believes he can fool others and win status for himself through his ruse. Cleverness and building on the work of others require wisdom and honest skill if they are to be of value.

The Tradition of the WREN

A little bird told me ...
Traditional saying

Of all the birds revered by the Druids, the wren was considered the most sacred. In Ireland it was called the Drui-en, or Druid Bird; in Welsh the word Dryw signifies both a druid and a wren.

Why is it that the Druid is pictured as an apparently nondescript little bird and not as an obviously powerful bird like the eagle? The following story from the western highlands of Scotland tells us. In a great assembly of all the birds of the air, it was decided that the sovereignty of the feathered tribe should be given to the bird who could fly the highest. The favorite was naturally the eagle, who immediately began his flight toward the sun—fully confident in his ability to win the title of King of the Birds. When he found himself soaring high above all his competitors, he proclaimed in a mighty voice his monarchy over all creatures that had wings. But suddenly, from out of his wings popped the wren, who had hidden himself under the eagle's feathers. He flew a few inches higher and chirped out loudly, "Birds, look up and behold your king!"

The Cunning Wren

This story shows us the wren as a cunning bird, prepared to build on the achievements of others and to mock their pride by out-witting them at the final moment.

The shaman was often known as the "cunning man," and the Druid-as-shaman is also the "cunning man"—the man who can become invisible like the wren, who can travel on the back of the noble eagle to reach his destination, saving himself energy in the process. Being small he is unobtrusive, and being small he can enter worlds that bigger people cannot—as Alice discovered in Wonderland. Being proud makes us unwieldy; being small and humble enables us to slip through the eye of a needle or down the root of a tree.

The Breton Druids go even further in according the wren a key role in their bird-lore: they say that it was the wren who brought fire from heaven, but that as she flew back down to earth her wings began to burn and she had to pass her gift to the robin, whose plumage also burst into flames. The lark then came to the rescue, finally bringing the gift of fire to the world.

The Druid's house is the wren's nest—a place of comfort and safety, for another important symbol in Druidry is the egg. The Druid's Egg, made famous by Pliny

's remarks, articulates the idea that in order to grow and change we need to go through periods of incubation—withdrawing from the world to allow ourselves to reform in the womb of time. The wren's nest was said to be protected by lightning. Whoever tried to steal wren's eggs or baby wrens would find their house struck by lightning and their hands would shrivel up. Lightning was considered by the Druids to be the weapon of the thunder bull-god Taranis, who often inhabited oak-trees, and the wren was sacred to Taranis. The oak struck by lightning is the symbol of the enlightened Druid—the sage infused with the power of the Sky Father. The Pictish stones found in Scotland often bear the zigzag line of a lightning flash to convey the same concept.

Hunting the Wren

On the Isle of Man a story is told of a fairy-girl or mermaid who lured youths into the sea. One of them threw a spear at her, and to avoid it she turned herself into a wren, but she was obliged to assume her own shape on each New Year's Day. On that day she was at the mercy of her hunters, who, if they were able, could kill her. A wren's feather became a lucky charm to preserve sailors from drowning, and no Manxman would go to sea without one.

The tradition of wren-hunting took place on New Year's Day until the Feast of the Wren was transferred to St. Stephen's Day on December 26th. With this tradition the wren has become a god or king rather than a mermaid—for the wren was hunted and killed in a ritualistic way, enacting the idea that the death of a god bestows strength on his killer, a variant of the belief that in the killing of the old king, his powers will be passed on to his successor.

In the unpleasant custom of hunting this tiny bird we see a distortion of an ancient Druid tradition. The wren symbolized wisdom and divinity. It is difficult actually to see a wren. At New Year the apprentice Druid would go out by himself into the countryside in search of hidden wisdom, in the same way that a Native American would go on a vision quest. If he found a wren he would take that as a sign that he would be blessed with inner knowledge in the coming year. Finding a creature small and elusive to the point of invisibility was a metaphor for finding the elusive divinity within all life.

At some point, with the transition from paganism to Christianity, that divinity once found was killed, as Jesus had been killed in Jerusalem. Christian tradition in the British Isles and in France is full of folk-customs surrounding the hunting of the wren, its procession in the streets, the singing of "The wren's knell" and other dirges, and its ritual buryings.

Part of the work of Druidry today lies in going deeper than our Christian heritage to reclaim the beauty and the life that our pre-Christian ancestors saw in Nature and all her creatures.



Presented by The Druid Oracles app from The Fool's Dog.

Deck: The DruidCraft Tarot
Spread: Card of the Day
Date: Fri Sep 20 11:40:58 EDT 2019


Today's Card
PRINCE of WANDS (Reversed)

KEYWORDS

• Passionate • Eager • Rebellious

Ornament

The Prince of Wands is full of enthusiasm and energy. He loves to initiate projects and to have ideas, but he has trouble completing them – his eagerness is greater than his commitment to seeing things through. It is for this reason that, while he makes an ardent and passionate lover, he might not be a loyal or committed one. His social conscience may spur him to act the revolutionary or to rebel, though this may not always be the case, his interests instead showing in commerce, sport or drama.

Meaning   If you are the Prince of Wands, you will recognize the characteristics of being enthusiastic about new ideas, and of being able to move swiftly from one idea to another, while finding the finer details tedious. Instead, you enjoy travel and adventure. The idea of moving house is exciting rather than overwhelming, and you relish facing challenges and meeting new people. For your personal development, it would be wise to work on cultivating reliability, attention to detail, commitment, and the ability to deliver on your promises – to yourself and to others.

If the card does not represent a person, it may indicate challenges, travel, moving house, putting ideas into action, or meeting interesting people.

Reverse meaning   Either you have no energy to put ideas into action, or the fiery energy of the Prince of Wands has become unbalanced, introducing the possibility of reckless or thoughtless behaviour. The reversed card can sometimes denote a liar or a bully – a rebel without a cause – or a heartless lover. It can also indicate someone unable to control their temper, who leaves a trail of emotional devastation behind them. Alternatively, it may suggest that you are actually avoiding passion, excitement and adventure. Journeys may be delayed, or you may find yourself endlessly procrastinating.



Presented by The DruidCraft Tarot app from The Fool's Dog.