ONIM ~ Forgiveness

What an appropriate card for this week!

My weekend began with me forgiving Emotional Turmoil™. Freeing myself from the frustration and the resentment was very good! Of course, sometimes I still feel like pulling my hair out, but I am trying to be more understanding and forgiving. Count until 10 and breathe...

And today... a horrible fight against my little Taurus Sister. One of the people I love most in the world, but she and I have very different personalities and we almost seem to speak different languages sometimes - specially when we are both angry! She's Earth, I am Fire.

Usually we get along very well despite the differences. But today we began fighting over something quite silly... and in the end it almost turned into a physical fight! Thank goodness Pisces Mom was around to calm us down and talk to us, until we could breathe again. Less than one hour later, sister and I were talking again in a friendly manner. I officially walked into her room and asked for forgiveness, for having hurt her emotionally and almost physically. I told her I truly love her, and that I was very sorry for losing control. She accepted my apologies, said she was sorry too and we ended up hugging and laughing together.

ONIM ~ The Eyes of Beauty

I am a bit late... I did not turn on the computer yesterday, I was too tired. And yet, despite the fact that I felt too weak to even type, insomnia paid me a late night visit and kept me awake until past 2am.

Thank you for existing, black coffee & Red Bull!

Today I felt even weaker, and I had to ask my Pilates teacher to please take it easy because I my muscles seemed to be exhausted. And they were. They were trembling even though I didn't work out as intensely as I use to. Thankfully, my teacher is a wonderful person and friend, and she helped me to feel much better. I am glad to have her in my life!

I know why I am tired, and why I could not sleep. I know the source of my stress, I know what is making my heart race and my brain swim in cortisol and adrenalin. I have many shortcomings, but denial isn't one of them - I am very lucid about what is going on inside myself. I may choose to ignore it, I may stick my head in the sand... but I know it.

Wildwood Tarot says... don't end it - nurture it.

I have finally received my delayed packages, and one of them contained the Wildwood Tarot, which I got in a wonderful trade with Carla from Rowan Tarot. I confess I ain't much attracted to the whole Druid thing, and what made me want this deck was the fact it was trimmed and the fact it's illustrated by Will Worthington. When I first looked through the cards, few cards seemed "beautiful" to me... but I know from experience, that you never really know how much you'll like a deck until you use it.

For your information, the first time I looked through the Playing Card Oracles I found the deck scary. It was the beginning of a love story.

So, I did a small 3-card reading yesterday, using a layout taught in the book. The card in the center represents the issue. The card on the left represents what you should not do. And the card on the right represents what you should do. I asked about how can I best deal with my situation with Emotional Turmoil™.

ONIM ~ The Fire Faery

Oh No, It's Monday. Again. But I have to say the week didn't start as badly as I thought it would. Daylight saving time began on Sunday, so now it's still day I leave work. It's nice, it lessens the impression that I am wasting my live inside a windowless cell. The time also seems to pass faster, which is awesome at work (the clock really appears to be moving when I look at it). And although I've been going through some Emotional Turmoil™, I have found a way of dealing with its source for now.

Good. But when The Fire Faery paid me a visit on Sunday night, my first reaction was - forgive the bad word - "what the f***!?". I'm serious. I put the card back in the box and began to wonder if the ONIM was an exercise in futility after all. Because there was no way my week would have any 'creative action and optimism'.

But Monday came, and things changed. I had a godawful night of sleep, but still had a lot of energy during the day. I went downtown, and found two VERY nice used books - one about Egyptian Cosmology and the other about the Mudras.  I am also happy with how I'm dealing with the Emotional Turmoil™...  I chose the path of Love and Tolerance, instead the path of Hate and Struggle, and this is keeping me from saying things I'll regret later while also pleasing the other party involved. And I also did my work very efficiently, without the usual lassitude.

In a sense, I tried to start my week with a more upbeat attitude. It's not that I am bursting with happiness... life is pretty much the same... but I found ways to keep myself interested. To keep myself alive. To keep my mind stimulated. And since The Fire Faery also brings good results to your efforts, she brought me the biggest gift of all:

Fours as Winds?

The text below is a small compilation of some reflections I posted at the Temple of Wisdom, regarding the apparent contradiction between the number 4 and the idea of Winds. Many people who start studying the Playing Card Oracles are surprised to see the number 4, usually associated to stillness, structure, foundation and order, being symbolized by Winds - rather unstable forces.

I spent a long time thinking about this, and came to my own conclusions about what the number 4 really represents, and how it matches the idea of the Four Winds very well. Hopefully, my ideas will help other readers and students.

For a while I thought that the number 4 - a number of stability and structure - did not relate at all to the idea of a wind. After all, winds are an unpredictable element. They bring you rains, but they can also steal them away in a matter of minutes. They can be a welcome breeze in a summer day, or a hurricane!

I began to meditate about the 4s and I realized that, while winds can represent unpredictable forces, in the case of the cards they usually symbolize a steady, constant energy. The problem is when we automatically think of the number 4 as stillness - structures are not necessarily still. But they usually behave the same way, go in the same direction, focus on the same goal.

Nothing in the head... everything in the mind.

First of all, I'd like to thank you all my friends who commented on my last Oh No It's Monday! post and wished me good luck with the MRI. Thank goodness, the results were good! Nothing in the brain and skull area! That's such a relief. We may have to investigate the spine area... I still have to talk to my otolaryngologist, see if he wants to try other things or wait to see if the symptom will go away on its own.

The more I think about it, the more I think my Pilates teacher (who is also an physiotherapist) is right - my constant neck/back tension could be the source of the problem. I am a very stressed person, and the fact I have not been sleeping well makes me even more stressed. I have trigger points in my neck and upper back area (she told me that), and these can cause many symptom, from pain to numbness, in different areas of the body.

If that's the problem, then it's something I can deal with. Through Pilates and Yoga exercises for the chakras, I can try to cure the physical symptoms. But as we know stress is also psychological, and this part is the problem. What is making me stressed?

Perhaps my mind is the biggest trigger point of all. It's the true source of my blockages.

In a moment of great worry, I did a 4-card reading with my Playing Card Oracles about what could be causing the facial hypoesthesia. The in the Head position was the 2 of Spades - a card of disagreements, strife, conflicts and... inner turmoil. We discussed the reading at the Temple of Wisdom, but it was hard to pinpoint the cause of the problem due to our general lack of expertise in the medical field (only one member is a healthcare professional, and he did bring some good and objective ideas) .

However, the more I look at this card the more it says to me that the roots of the problem are not just organic, but psychological. The two faces in the card, yelling at each other, could easily be two Marinas unable to come to an agreement. But why can't I hear what they are discussing about? And more importantly - who is the judge of this conflict?


The Playing Card Oracles © Ana Cortez & C.J. Freeman

ONIM ~ The Wise Woman of Wonderland

My card for this week comes from Wisdom of the Hidden Realms deck, and it's The Wise Woman of Wonderland. The card came reversed, which in this deck means that Wise Woman is my challenger this week.

Uh-oh.

As a challenger, the Wise Woman tells me that I have somehow compromised myself out of fear, or that I am in denial of something. The two things could be the two sides of the same coin: you deny that a situation needs to be changed, and ends up compromising yourself because you are afraid to change.

I do not know how this relates to my life at this moment, but such is the nature of denial is it not? Ostriches don't actually bury their heads in the sand, but we, humans, do.

I must confess that my head is empty looking at this card! But then again, another thing has been occupying my mind since last Wednesday, and that it may be the reason behind my lack of 'cartomantic inspiration'. A possible health problem, and the symptom is very strange. I never had this before.

The Answer Deck talks about the Postal Blues

As some of you know, I've been going through some serious "postal blues", as Helen calls them. I have decks that were sent to me in July... they should have arrived in mid-August. August passed, and so did September. We are in October, and no news about them.

There are a couple of obstacles between me and my packages. First of all, our customs are purposefully taking longer to release international parcels in order to halt importations. Second, the Brazilian has gone on a nationwide strike. They are delivering stuff, but veeeery slowly, and most of packages are sitting forgotten in a storage shed waiting for the day the strike ends.

While I really hope all 5 packages arrive safely, there's one that is special to me, and I am worried about it. In July I ordered a copy of the vintage edition of Ana Cortez's Playing Card Oracles deck. Anyone who knows me or reads my blog knows that this is my favorite deck! So I am eagerly waiting for this, and it'd upset me a lot if the deck got lost in the Brazilian customs/post mess. A friend of mine did a reading about the package for me, and it strongly suggested it has been stolen... much to my worry!

Inspired by Magic Mentha's recent posts using The Answer Deck, I have decided to do a small reading to know where my Vintage PCO is in its journey to me right now. I placed the Journey card in the middle as a significator. Because this card is facing left, the cards are all read from right to left. The two cards on the right mean the past, the two above and below the significator show where the package is now, and the two on the left show the future developments.