A new friend: the Night Queen

First of all - I'd like to thank you all for the kind messages you left on my last post. I could not answer individually because I was in no conditions to do so, but I am sure that each positive word from you gave me strength even if I was unaware of them. Words have power, as you all know. So thank you, thank you very much.

I'd be lying if I said I am feeling brand new... not really. I am still in my process of grieving and healing. The most acute - desperate - part seems to have ended for now (I do not discard possible aftershocks), and I am feeling a bit closer to normal. I am eating again, and sleeping better.

But am I the same person I was two weeks ago? Sounds dramatic but -- no.

I feel like something has changed drastically inside me. It's so big I don't even know for sure what it is. Last week I kept wanting to feel like myself again, but now I realize that 'myself' is someone different. And until I understand who this new person is, I am probably going to dance in the dark for a while. That is the message of the Night Queen.

I found an unexpected companion in my journey through pain and shock: the Enchanted Oracle, by Jessica Galbreth. I don't usually care for oracles with faeries and mysterious witches, and I must say I didn't love the art of this deck at first sight. I bought this it by impulse, in a local bookstore, when I was feeling really sad. I wanted to give myself something, after feeling like I had lost so much.

I didn't expect this deck to be so helpful to me. Sincere and powerful messages, disguised behind what many would consider your everyday fantasy art. The more I use it, the more the art speaks to me, and the more beautiful and meaningful I find it.

The Night Queen has been appearing to me, insisting that I allow myself to travel through the darkness. A few days ago, I just wanted the darkness and pain to be over. Now I feel more ready to learn from it. It hurts, it's uncomfortable, but I believe that is what "searching through the wreckage"means. We cannot escape our own darkness, nor do we leave it unscathed.

Despite the hopelessness I still feel sometimes, I am determined to believe that there's a reason why I am going through all this. There's a purpose behind these difficult lessons - and I want to learn them. It's not just what happens to you that matters, but also what you do with it.

It may take a long time for me to rise again from darkness. It may take a long time for my heart to open again. But I no longer worry so much. Pain helps us to carve out who we are, it makes us stronger and truer. It helps to shed the old skin.

And I want to shed this old skin.

I do not know when the day will rise again, but this night shall not be wasted in fear...

Enchanted Oracle © Llewellyn Worldwide & Jessica Galbreth