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.

Turning Darkness Into Light This Yuletide Season

This blog post was written as my contribution to the Yule Tarot Blog Hop. Welcome to the last Tarot blog hop of 2013.  If at any point you are daunted by the length of my blog post below, you can visit the blog before mine,  the blog after mine, or comb through the Master List for the rest of the participating blogs by following the links here:

The Blog Before      |       Master List       |      The Blog After

Rebirth At Yule

This Tarot blog hop is Yule-themed and focused on understanding how each member of our Tarot Blog Hop community had  “Turned Darkness Into Light”.   

Yule night or Winter Solstice sees the longest night of the year.  When the sun rises the next morning, we celebrate light with the rebirth of the sun as the dark half of the year makes way for the lighter half.   In the Northern Hemisphere, Yule was known as the Winter Solstice while in the southern hemisphere Yule was known as the Summer Solstice.  No matter where one was located and whichever religion or traditions one followed, Yule was always a magical time filled with excitement and steeped in traditions.  Yule saw the triumph of light over darkness.  As Celtic Yule lore went, Yule was celebrated as the rebirth of the Sun when the Oak King who ruled over the light part of the year, defeated the Holly King who ruled over the dark part of the year. So Yule brought with it the opportunity to be reborn with new light.

As the wrangler for this Yule 2013 Blog Hop, the season offered me a time to think about rebirth.  You see, it's been just over a year that I had been part of this Tarot Blog Hop community.  When I joined the community, I got more than the chance to share my thoughts about Tarot.  I gained so much more.

Gaining New Friends

Throughout the year, as part of this Tarot blog hop community, I built new friendships that transcended race, religious beliefs and geographical barriers.  Through them, I gained so much knowledge about how the Sabbats along the Wheel of the Year were celebrated. Besides gaining new friends, amongst them, I had found wonderful Tarot professionals who had become mentors, teachers, and confidantes so critical to my growth as a Tarot reader.

Indeed, the members of this Tarot blog hop community were my light along this journey of growth.  One cannot possibly fathom the number of reading techniques, Tarot spreads, astrological and numerological correspondences, as well as spiritual practices that I had learnt from this group of Tarot professionals. Because of their openness, I realized, I need not be bothered with an “ism” to feel belonged.  I need not be a Pagan to be celebrating the Sabbats together with my Pagan friends, just as one need not be a Tarot enthusiast, to be opened to the advice and guidance I could provide with my Tarot cards.  Through the darkness of ignorance, my fellow Tarot pals held my hand towards the light of knowledge.

Gaining New Perspective On My Faith

I finally went back to church.  Raised as a Roman Catholic, I made peace with myself and with my God over the course of the year.  You see, I grew up realizing that my spiritual journey was a matter between Him and I, so I welded magical systems and rituals within my Catholic framework to create what was uniquely a path of my own.  As Monte Farber said, "Rituals help build a spiritual connection in our daily lives by acknowledging the existence of a Higher Power."  

In a way, this experience became my rebirth.  Comfortable with my relationship with my God, no longer ashamed of my intuitive gifts and believing that He accepted my eccentricities and loved me as I was, I finally went back to church to attend mass every Sunday.  That period of "darkness" had indeed turned into light because I accepted that I was given a gift for a purpose.  My full moon ritual every month, was always dedicated to thanking Him for the abundance that surrounds me.  This Yule, as I held the energy within my sacred space, I thought of the victims of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines who do not have heat, clean water, shelter and food.  My ritual  was dedicated to bringing warmth, light and comfort to those who are not as fortunate as we are during this yuletide season.

I would like to take this opportunity to share my prayer specially written for my Yule ritual:

"Poinsettias, mistletoe and holly bright.  

We welcome Yule and the return of light.

Angels guard and guide me as I cast my circle tonight.

 The sun returns, with His birth, the Lord of Light.  

As I light this candle to dispel darkness, doubt and disappointments,

I thank God for blessings of love, hope and abundance. 

I pray that I bring light , healing and love as I go forth,

To touch the world from East to South to West to North.”

Gaining A New Spiritual Awakening - The Judgement Card

Perhaps, the most important thing I had gained just recently, was my spiritual reawakening.

As Yule for me was like a rebirth, I had decided to meditate on the Judgement card.  For this purpose, I used the Judgement card from my Radiant Rider Waite Tarot deck updated by Virginijus Poshkus and published by US Games.

The Judgement card depicts a  man, woman and child rising from the dead on judgment day, to the sounds of the trumpet being played by an angel.  Mountains and turbulent sea in the background represent  life’s challenges that they had been through and are being called to be judged on their response to each of these challenges.

I meditated on how my spiritual journey had evolved and this card was so appropriate.  My new spiritual awakening saw me walking into a new discovery with my Tarot cards.  As I grew my intuitive skills, I had become more opened to receiving spiritual messages in whatever shape and form. I have recently learnt to use the cards to connect with those who had passed.  

I had a conversation with my late father-in-law a few weeks ago.  You can read about it here: http://sungoddesstarot.blogspot.com/2013/11/a-conversation-with-my-father-in-law.html    The conversation I had with him through my cards had made me conscious of what I needed to do more to solder my relationship with David. 

Also, because my conversation with my father-in-law opened an opportunity for me to convince David about the reality of the afterlife, I was 'urged' to describe an incident whereby David had a huge fight with his brother, Rob when he was quite young.  Now, David is much younger than Rob, so with that age gap, it was quite out of character for them to be in an intense fight like that.  I described to him about the vision of how he pinned Rob down in an attempt to rain some punches at him when his usually docile Dad stepped in to break the fight. His Dad was a gentle, quiet soul who was never known to be angry but he was terribly angry and disappointed then.  When I related this incident to David, he said, " How did you know this?  I have never told you about this incident before. It was so long ago".   I calmly replied, " Your Dad told me, so you can believe me enough to have a proper conversation with him. And you have to do so soon before he goes back into the light."  I encouraged David to spend a moment to talk to his Dad, and he did, so that he could 'close the loop' on the conversations he should have had with him but never could.  

I am not sure where this new discovery will lead me.  However, I am still awed by how much more depth I could build with my cards, and what else I could do with them.  As long as my heart and mind remains open to spiritual messages, I could help clients  beyond the usual career, family and relationship issues. Perhaps, with practice, I could hold the hands of some clients through their period of grief and bereavement. After all, true to my purpose, my intuitive skills were meant to help them turn darkness into light.

Thanks for allowing me to share what Yule means to me.  Do visit Louise's blog lined up before mine or Olivia's blog lined up after mine.  And do not miss out on the rest of the wonderful blogs.  The respective links are below:


The Blog Before      |       Master List       |      The 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
.

Judgement card from the Radiant Rider Waite Tarot deck updated 
by Virginijus Poshkus and published by US Games.

My Yule Candle - This particular candle was used at a service at church to
pray for the victims of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines.  I have brought it back to grace
the altar at home for my Yule ritual