Nurturing Light This Spring

The First Tarot Blog Hop of 2013

Having had so much fun with a few Tarot Blog Hops last year, I had very quickly put my name down for the first Tarot Blog Hop of 2013, themed to celebrate Imbolc.  The topic conceived by Maureen Aisling Duffy-Boose is titled "In The Belly" and we were tasked to explore the ideas we were nurturing during a season that celebrated new beginnings.  I am grateful that you are reading this post to get my perspective on what Imbolc means to me.  I would urge you to visit the blogs of my fellow Tarot Blog Hoppers whose blog links can be found here http://tarotwitchery.blogspot.com/2013/02/tarot-blog-hop-master-list.html.    If you have hopped onto my blogpost from USGames's blog at http://usgs.typepad.com/blog/2013/02/imboc-tarot-blog-hop.html welcome. 

Imbolc

Imbolc is also known as Candlemas and Groundhog's Day.  As a Roman Catholic, I celebrate this day as the feast day of St Brigid of Kildare.  It's also called Candlemas when referenced to the commemoration of the presentation of Jesus at the temple as a baby when he was proclaimed as the one true hope and light.    In Celtic celebrations, Brigid is revered as the Goddess of healing, writing, poetry and prosperity.  As a solar goddess, she represents the fire and light that burns within us.  When we nurture this light, it  creates inner healing and revitalizes one with energy.  Coincidentally, Chinese New Year, the festive season that celebrates Spring is just around the corner too.  So my friends and family are in the throes of cleaning out the old and welcoming the new, with every effort focused on creating a more prosperous Chinese New Year.

Celebrating New Beginnings

Imbolc, Candlemas or St Brigid's Feast day occurs on February 2nd. It marks the mid way mark between the Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox. Traditionally regarded as the beginning of Spring, this is the time the first stirrings  of Spring can be seen.  Seeds that were planted a few months earlier will start to see signs of life. Farmers celebrate the return of fresh milk with the birth of the first lambs.  Daylight starts to get longer.  The warmth of the Sun is being welcomed back again.  For some of us, we celebrate it as a rebirth and a new beginning.  It is a period we nurture new creative ideas as we make concrete plans to achieve our goals. 

As we nurture new ideas, the thing I had asked myself was, "Just like the changing of the season from Winter to Spring, what changes did I want to make moving forward?"

Finding Light

Last year, due to my love for writing, I had decided to start writing a book to mark a milestone in my journey with Sun Goddess Tarot.  However, with distractions, I never got to finish that project and my scripts were left filed away in a folder called "Stuff".   As a New Year's resolution, one of my goals was to finish that book.  I also wanted to enhance my skills as a Tarot reader to provide even more depth to the readings that I did for my clients. Last year, as I was fueled with enthusiasm for Tarot, I attended so many courses and was constantly studying.  Juggling these courses, studies, my work as a volunteer reader, my mentoring programs and undertaking professional readings at the same time, all started to cause a burn-out in me. Taking on the book project was just all too much that I started getting writer's block.  I literally could not face my scripts mid way through that project.  Moreover, as I was exhausted, my creativity in doing the business development work for my Tarot consultancy started waning.  In truth, the light within me was threatening to snuff itself out. 

That needed to change.  I needed more focus.

The Imbolc Tarot Spread To Nurture Light

Imbolc presented a perfect time for me to rethink how I wanted to approach my Tarot business and what other creative ideas I could nurture to make this year even more meaningful to my clients.  Being a festival of light, I decided to create a Tarot Spread in the formation of a Candle Wheel or Sun Wheel, to get some insights to help me start the "birthing" process critical to re-charting my plans for the year.   I used the Tarot of the Pagan Cats for this spread.

1)  What can I do best to bring light to my clients? – Lovers

2) What can I do best to bring light to myself? - Ace of Cup

3) What can I do best to fan that light to keep my creativity burning as I work on rolling out my plans? - King of Pentacles Reversed

4) What must I do to prevent that light from waning so that I can carry my plans through to full term? - The Hanged Man

5) What final advice can the cards offer to ensure the successful delivery of my plans? - Queen of Swords

What can I do best to bring light to my clients? - The Lovers

The Lovers card represents mutual attraction, trust, passion and harmony.  For me, it was an affirmation to continue bringing light to my clients who trusted me and my work leveraging something I am most passionate about - Tarot.   It is also a card  that represents the process by which I establish what's important  and what's not in my life, because of Tarot, and sharing that personal belief system with my clients so that they can let go of what no longer serve and continue to pursue the goals that they are meant to pursue. 

Through Tarot, I have helped them to make important decisions in their lives and will continue to do so this year. That's how I can best bring light to my clients.

What can I do best to bring light to myself? - Ace of Cups

The Ace of Cups offered me an opportunity to do something that fulfilled me.  Tarot did and it still does.  The reason why I started getting exhausted was that I lost sight of something that fulfilled me even more, and that was using Tarot to do even more and better projects that could help my clients.  The Ace of Cups sees me starting a new creative venture. And it asked me to have faith, follow my heart and listen to my intuition. My intuition told me to go back to the scripts of that book, tear them up and restart my book again, taking the topic in a different direction.  My intuition also told me that while I had nurtured a business idea to take my business into the corporate space last year, I should start making plans to see the idea to fruition this year.   The Ace of Cups is a dare to me to drink from the cup of opportunities that will fulfill me this year. 

 I have a strange feeling, that book and the efforts around corporate coaching are actually a single project that will come together to build something even bigger.

What can I do best to fan that light to keep my creativity burning as I roll out my plans? - King of Pentacles Reversed

The King of Pentacles upright, represents financial security, commitment, diligence and an enterprising disposition.  In the reversed, this King warns me that it is not enough just to work hard, but I had to work smart too.  Working smart means being practical and flexible about the way my Tarot business is run.  

In order to keep the light of passion for the business burning brightly, it was essential to not just come out with creative  ideas to take the business up another level.  It pays to cooperate with fellow light workers too who have skill-sets in which I have gaps.  In that way, I can create even more interesting yet relevant opportunities leveraging the different strengths of my fellow colleagues.  With this card, I got suddenly inspired with so many great ideas to organize events, workshops and coaching sessions with fellow light workers.

What must I do to prevent that light from waning so that I can carry my plans through to full term? - The Hanged Man

The Hanged Man was an interesting pick for this question.  I gleaned 2 interpretations with the card.  A few weeks ago, I fell out with someone who termed my work around Tarot as "Mambo Jambo".  I was extremely upset by that prejudicial assault on my spiritual pursuits that I spent a week driven to depression and bound by anger that wasted away my energies which could have been better used for the purpose of helping a client.  

The Hanged Man reminded me that sometimes, I still grapple with worries about the skepticism of people who don't know me well.  As such, I don't actively market Sun Goddess Tarot beyond my circle of friends and behind the safety net of facelessness afforded me by my social network platforms.  The Hanged Man is an advice to give birth to my creative ideas freely and without worries about how others see me. I needed to have more self confidence and not allow skeptics contribute to my being "suspended" and not being able to move beyond my creative boundaries.

As a second interpretation, the Hanged Man also warned me that I needed to be willing to invest time and energy to pursue my spiritual and personal goals with Tarot.  While I was devoted to the cause I would need to consider how I should be planning my time and efforts and juggling them with my other priorities.  Last year, I was exhausted beyond words because I wanted to do everything at the same time out of enthusiasm to devour more knowledge and pursue exciting projects.  This year, I planned to take a step back and focus on just a few but bigger projects in a bid to prevent the light within me from waning.  As I write this, I am starting to feel the stirrings of a new theme for that book within my heart and my mind.

What final advice can the cards offer to ensure the successful delivery of my plans? - Queen of Swords

The Queen of Swords advised me that the seeds of the projects that I had aimed to plant this Spring would require my making business decisions not with my heart only but also with my head.  I also needed to carry my projects through with clarity of purpose and a sound, logical plan. The Queen also assured me that as long as I maintained my honest and upfront disposition, I should never worry what the skeptics have to say about my love for Tarot and I should never allow them to curb my creativity and my passion.

Nurturing Light This Spring

The one big take away from the interpretation of my Imbolc Tarot Spread above is that the light of creativity and passion within me, can only be nurtured by me and me alone.  It gave me a clear direction to be more focused with my pursuits and to let my intuition guide me to do only what will eventually fulfill me.  It taught me that it’s okay to step back and re-evaluate and re-chart my goals when I am “not feeling it”.   It taught me never to fear skepticism because only I can determine the positive outcomes I want to influence.  It gave me hope and assurance that I can continue to keep the fire of creativity within me burning to warm the hearts and lives of my clients and myself through Tarot.

On that note, may I take this opportunity to invite you to read my Tarot Blog Hop neighbour, Christiana's perspective on the significance of Imbolc at http://tarottrends.com/content/divining-brigid

About the writer:

The writer of this blog post is a marketeer by trade, and a tarot card reader by accident. She was awarded a Certified Professional Tarot Reader qualification from the Tarot Certification Board of America (TCBA) and a Tarosophy Tarot Diploma from Tarot Professionals Ltd.  She is also a certified numerologist; hence her reading style blends numerological significance with Tarot card interpretations. A member of the American Tarot Association (ATA) and the Tarot Association of the British Isles (TABI), she is also a reader for the Free Tarot Network and is a mentor for the ATA as well as the FTN.
She can be contacted at www.facebook.com/SunGoddessTarot or www.sungoddesstarot.com