Welcome Spring Through Tarot, Healing And Creativity

THE IMBOLC TAROT BLOG HOP

This blog post was written as my contribution to the Imbolc Tarot Blog Hop which incidentally, would be the first Tarot blog Hop for 2014!  Christiana Gaudet, the wrangler for this particular blog hop had decided on this topic "Tarot, Healing And Creativity".  To visit the blog posts on the same topic written by my fellow Tarot bloggers, please visit the links below:

Blog Before     |     Master List     |      Blog After 

IMBOLC WELCOMES SPRING

Imbolc, was celebrated as an ancient Celtic fire festival that marked the mid point in between the seasons of Winter and Summer.  The festival was a celebration of the renewal of the earth when prayers were focused on welcoming Spring. Bonfires and candles were lit to hark back light, longer and warmer days.  Hopes were placed on creating abundance, from planting seeds that could reap crops in a few months, to the birthing of  cattle, lamb and other farm animals.   At Imbolc, Brigid was celebrated by my Pagan friends as the Goddess of fire, healing, creativity and fertility.  

The Christians celebrated  the feast day of St Brigit of Kildare. St Brigit was honoured for her devout faith and support of creativity.  A testament to this was when she founded a school of art and nurtured skills like metal work and illumination.   Another testament to her creativity was when she approached King Leinster for a piece of land upon which she could build a convent.  The King laughed at her and promised her that she could have a piece of land as big as her cloak could cover.  When Brigit spread her cloak on the ground, it grew miraculously to cover acres of grounds.  The King,  having experienced this miracle, gave her the land as promised and became a Christian soon after.  In more ways than one, she should be honoured for the new beginnings she had established through her creativity.

TAROT, HEALING AND CREATIVITY

I saw Imbolc as a period that celebrated new beginnings.  Most people would have come off the year-end festivities with renewed vision of what they wanted the new year to hold for them.  It was a time when farmers started to plant new seeds, and people started to plan for the for the rest of the year.  As they prayed for light and warmer days, they wanted to embrace the future with optimism and looked forward to manifesting their goals with all the past experiences they had garnered.  It was exactly the same with my clients, who kept me extremely busy these few weeks because they were in the throes of 2014 planning and wanted guidance on career and relationship so that they could navigate challenges through the year.

 I have always believed that my purpose was to use my intuitive skills to support the journey of healing that my clients took through the creative Tarot spreads that I enjoyed designing when I read for them.    However,  beyond the creative Tarot spreads that one could design, I wanted to explore the nifty idea of telling a story through Tarot.   I worked in Public Relations, and in that profession, it was all about story-telling for a purpose, and I see that same synergistic skill I had been using to do my Tarot readings.

I was quite inspired by Arwen Lynch's work when I attended one of her presentations at an international tarot conference a couple of months ago.  She spoke about Tarot for writers, and that was where I got the idea.  She also wrote a book called "Mapping The Hero's Journey" which aimed to help aspiring writers  finish writing that book within 33 days.  I would not attempt to tell a story here using my Tarot cards.  I would  instead be writing a poem guided by the Tarot cards that I had picked as I wrote this blog post.  I also had the  immense help of a few glasses of wine. 

This poem is called A New Beginning because the focus of my work this month, was to help my clients heal from their negative experiences in the last year, so that they could move on to embrace a better and more positive 2014.  Bear with me as this was my first time writing poetry by randomly picking my Tarot cards.


A NEW BEGINNING


STRENGTH

A laboured walk through darkness
I leave painful footsteps within the snow
With my last vestige of strength
I fight my weary way through the cold

KING OF CUPS

Where am I going
I don't quite know
Perhaps to find a place of calm
Or a clear path for me to run

KNIGHT OF PENTACLES

But I know that soon dawn will break
This journey is one I have to take
Even when the burden weighs heavy on my lap
As I struggle to take my next step

TEN OF SWORDS

With eyes fixed upon the horizon
I shall release all disappointments

ACE OF WANDS

To a new beginning I approach
When I am guided to find the right road

 ~ Joanna Ash,  Sun Goddess Tarot


Thanks to Christiana and Arwen, I learnt to be slightly more experimental with my Tarot cards and took them beyond my client readings.  I managed to write poetry with them too!  However, that book has to wait though, I now have a headache from the wine. 

Again, here are the links to the wonderful posts written by my fellow Tarot bloggers. 

Blog Before     |     Master List     |      Blog After 

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 is also a certified numerologist.  She is currently running a Tarot consultancy based in Singapore called Sun Goddess Tarot,  which provides confidential intuitive readings combining the metaphysical disciplines of Tarot, Numerology and Astrology via face to face and emails as well as readings at corporate and private events and workshops.  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 mentors Tarot protégés on behalf of the American Tarot Association

Website: www.sungoddesstarot.com
Email:  Joanna@sungoddesstarot.com
Facebook:  www.facebook.com/SunGoddessTarot
Twitter: www.twitter.com/SunGoddessTarot

I picked these cards randomly to help me craft this poetry called A New Beginning.
These cards were taken from the Morgan Greer Tarot deck
created by Bill Greer and Lloyd Morgan.
The cards were laid out deosil around a candle used for my Imbolc prayer.