What Can I Bring From My Table To Enrich The Community?
Welcome to my blog post written to celebrate the harvest festival of Lammas. You may be my regular blog reader, or you may be visiting this blog after having read Jordan's at http://jordanhoggard.wordpress.com/2013/08/01/tarotbloghop-lammas-tenders-wisdom. Or you may have worked your way backwards from Vivianne's blog at http://kismetscompanion.blogspot.sg/2013/08/tarot-blog-hop-lammas-2013.html. Should the links be broken at any point or you would like to read the rest of the contributions from the other Tarot bloggers, please visit the master list of blog links at http://tarotbyarwen.com/?p=10468
Today, as friends around the world celebrated the harvest festival of Lammas, I celebrated the fact that I came full circle with the Wheel of the Year as a member of this fabulous Tarot blog hop community. It had been a critical component of my growth as a Tarot reader. I had studied under various Tarot teachers and taken many Tarot courses in my attempts to raise the bar on my Tarot reading skills. However, nothing beat the knowledge I gained and the friends I made within this Tarot blog hop community.
The blog topic to celebrate Lammas was themed “What can we share from our table to enrich our community?” It was not difficult to find what I could share with my community. I knew I wanted to share my experience and expertise as a Tarot reader with those who are still at the beginning of their Tarot journey, the way my fellow Tarot bloggers did. They had been sharing so much of their bountiful experience and expertise with me about Tarot and life in general. This Tarot blog hop community was exemplary of the spirit of Lammas. Inspired by them, Tarot mentoring and coaching became my biggest passion. But they served only 1 group of people within my community, so what else could I bring to the table and to whom?
Celebrating Abundance At Lammas With The Queen Of Pentacles
First, for those unfamiliar with the festival, Lammas is a festival celebrated on 1 August throughout the world, to honour the first harvest. It honoured the bountiful crops, the first gathering of grains and the first plucking of fruits and vegetables, and a table full of food brought in from the garden well-planted in spring. In short, it meant Abundance. Lammas was particularly special for me because it fell on my birthday. There was nothing I wanted more on my birthday each year, than to know that whatever gifts bestowed on me by the Universe, served the purpose of bringing abundance to people around me.
The Queen of Pentacles was aptly picked as the “Lammas Muse”. I saw her as the epitome of a nurturing earth mother and a capable career woman providing financially, emotionally, physically and spiritually for the family and the people around her. In the Radiant Rider Waite deck, the image on the Queen of Pentacles card depicts a Queen sitting on a throne decorated in luxuriously abundant flowers, fruits, animals and angels. The tree in the picture and all around her are adorned with flowers and lush greenery. These are symbols of prosperity and wealth. A rabbit is seen at her feet, a symbol of fertility. The Queen was my inspiration. As I juggled a career as a marketeer, my passion as a professional Tarot reader and my roles as mother, wife and daughter, I aspire to be as successful, as generous, as giving, and as selfless as the Queen of Pentacles.
The Abundance From My Table Tarot Spread
Using the Queen of Pentacles as my Significator, and acknowledging that I have been blessed with gifts that allowed me to perform my multiple roles in my life, I created the Abundance From My Table Tarot spread to gain insights on what I could “bring from my table to enrich the community”. To me, the community was specifically focused on 3 groups of people most important to me. They are 1) my family, 2) my team at work and 3) my Tarot and Numerology clients and friends. The cards picked were from my Radiant Rider Waite Tarot deck created by Virginijus Poshkus and published by US Games.
What Can I Bring From My Table To My Family? - Temperance
Temperance is depicted by an image of an angel with one foot in the water and the other on land, representing his balancing the realms between the material and the subconscious world. This was a reminder that I had to strike a balance between what my inner consciousness tells me and my rational mind as I managed my day-to-day routine at home. The angel is also seen mixing water, pouring it from one cup to the other, a reminder that one had to adjust to circumstances and people, approach everything in moderation, and proactively create balance and harmony in one’s life.
I see Temperance as a card advising me to think long-term as I reevaluate my priorities in life. I had been putting my work, my clients and everything else outside of my home before my family. My daily routine was controlled by 4 devices, a laptop, an ipad, a blackberry and an iphone. They formed my army of technological administrators, dealing with my Tarot reading appointments, Tarot coaching sessions, Tarot events, creative agency briefings, work meetings, PR events, courses and industry networking events. I have not yet added my visits to Mum and Dad, medical appointments, David’s jamming sessions, photography assignments and time with Joel. Temperance knocked me on the head with 1 word – BALANCE.
As Joel was starting to spend more time out of the home, David and I had to familiarize ourselves with our new roles as Pre-Empty Nesters. This should have been the perfect time for David and I to have more time with each other. However, my multiple projects, mounting work pressures and Tarot appointments were getting in the way. Even my weekends were filled with Tarot appointments and coaching sessions. When David started asking me over facebook if I was coming home for dinner, i knew the messages of these cards were very clear. What I had to bring from my table to my family was my commitment to get my priorities right, and spend more time with them by balancing my busy lifestyle and multiple projects.
Temperance supporting the Queen of Pentacles were the perfect cards pointing to the desire for creating balance in my life for the sake of my family’s and my happiness. I could not get a more resounding message than this for my role as a wife, mother and daughter.
What Can I Bring From My Table To My Work? - Chariot
The Chariot card depicts an image of a charioteer steering the chariot with 2 sphinxes in front of him. The stars and crescent moon depicted in the card point to the spiritual forces at work supporting his quest to victory. The charioteer is not brandishing reins but just a wand which signifies passion and determination leading him towards his goals.
The Chariot card urged me to maintain focus and determination as I worked towards our goals with my team at work. My team is a very lean team built on highly skilled and experienced marketeers managing brand strategy, product marketing, corporate social responsibility, sponsorships, customer communications, public and media relations. As one could appreciate, the scope is humongous so I likened the 6 of us in the team to circus acrobats, juggling many big projects all at the same time in our bid to meet the company’s growth targets. The energy and camaraderie within this team had been my motivation to jump into the trenches with them to ensure that we exceeded expectations with the delivery of these project objectives.
I do get really exhausted from time to time because of near-impossible project deadlines, cross-functional team complexities, last minute changes in project plans and resource limitations. However, the Chariot reminded me to ascertain what the end-goal was and to work towards it.
That was when I thought I saw the light with the Chariot card. There are 2 sphinxes in the card, one in black and the other in white. It resembled the Asian concept of balance between the forces of Yin and Yang. It was urging me to balance my inner consciousness and my rational self to manage the challenges at work.
The Chariot supporting the Queen of Pentacles were the perfect cards reinforcing the need for me to balance my determination to attain my career goals while appreciating that journey (bumpy roads not withstanding) I was making towards my goals. As one would say, it really was not about the goal, but the journey towards the goal that mattered. I loved that journey with these girls I called, the A-Team. These cards reminded me to nurture my team with the same appreciation for the balance between attaining their career goals and their journey towards these goals. That would ensure that they came to work every day, loving what they did and doing what they loved.
What Can I Bring From My Table To My Tarot Clients? - Queen Of Cups
The image in the Queen of Cups depicts an introspective Queen holding on to a cup sitting on a throne by the sea. The water symbolize emotions over which the Queen governs and the fish represents her inner consciousness. The cup is closed indicating that her emotions run deep and that she could also be a trusted guide and mentor who could keep one’s secrets.
The Queen of Cups supporting the Queen of Pentacles together provided me with a clear message that as I sought to balance the commitments in my life with my passion as a professional Tarot reader, I had to do it with a lot of compassion, patience, emotional maturity and sensitivity. As the Queen of Cups is a highly intuitive Queen, the card urged me to trust my higher self as I gained intuitive experiences and spiritual wisdom through my Tarot journey. My rational mind sometimes got in the way as I indulged in the questioning of the science behind these intuitive experiences. With such doubt in my mind, I had limited the opportunities to expand my professional Tarot practice beyond what I was currently capable of doing. So, the Queen of Cups assured me of my purpose. With the intuitive gifts that the Universe had given me, beyond the Tarot readings that I had been doing for clients, I should be doing more to help mentor and coach beginning Tarot readers.
When I was a beginner Tarot reader myself, I was very involved in the different Tarot communities like the American Tarot Association (ATA), Tarot Association of the British Isles (TABI), the Tarot Guild, Aecletic Tarot, and Biddy Tarot. The immense knowledge I got from the more experienced Tarot readers within these communities was invaluable. I am still involved in these communities and I hope I could give back the same to the beginner Tarot readers by contributing my own knowledge and experience.
Making Abundance Count
The Tarot spread created to support the "Queen of Pentacles" reminded me that whatever gifts and skill sets I have would mean nothing if I gave only “bits and pieces” of my time and effort to my community. The cards were resoundingly hitting me on the head with one word – BALANCE.
I realized I cannot offer the best of myself to the people that mattered if I did not strive for balance and harmony in my life. This was critical for me to perform my roles as wife, mother and daughter, as well as marketeer and professional Tarot reader and Tarot coach. The dynamics have changed. It was no longer about my needing to raise the bar with even more certificates and qualifications under my belt to enhance my skills as a marketeer, a Tarot reader and a Numerologist. It was more important for me to optimize my existing skill sets and re-prioritize my commitments so that everyone within my community gets the best of me.
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) as well as a certified numerologist. She is currently running a Tarot consultancy called Sun Goddess Tarot based in Singapore. A member of the American Tarot Association (ATA) and the Tarot Association of the British Isles (TABI), she is also endorsed as a reader for the Free Tarot Network and is a mentor for the ATA. She can be contacted at www.facebook.com/SunGoddessTarot or www.sungoddesstarot.com
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The Abundance From My Table Tarot Spread
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