Medicine Cards and the Long Winter
At wicca class earlier this week our teacher read our “medicine cards,” essentially a tarot-like deck and process which calls upon Native American mythology and beliefs. Before I descibe “what the cards told me,” let me back up and give you some background.
In an earlier post, I mentioned “The Long Winter” without really explaining it. As some of you may have guessed, the Long Winter was the winter of 1998-1999, when I separated from my wife and moved into a tiny little mountain cabin in the forested areas outrside Chico (California, where the ex and I had been living with her mom and stepdad).
It would not be an exaggeration to say that that winter tested my will to survive; hell, it pretty well tested my will to live. The woman I loved with all my heart and soul, and with whom I’d envisioned a grand life (success in our careers, kids, growing old together) told me one day that
- she didn’t love me, and
- wasn’t sure she’d ever loved me.
It was the utter destruction of all that I believed to be true. (This was the relationship where I finally understood the truth in Sonnet 116.)
So a lot of what I’ve been dealing with in the last couple of years - issues of identity, security, and confidence - have been exacerbated by the “death” of my previous life.
(And that’s what it felt like after the separation: Like I was in mourning, like my wife had died and been replaced by some pod-person simulacrum that I didn’t know, so deftly had she hidden and so suddenly had she revealed her actual feelings.)
So fast forward to recent months as I’m hazarding little baby steps toward expanding the “concept of me,” stuff like realizing I’m adult enough to drink responsibly and intuiting that my scientific paradigm could coexist with spirituality (like Spock said, “Logic is the beginning of wisdom… not the end.”)
And so one of the things I’m trying to remain more open to are divinitory tools. Still not sure that the messages are coming from some Power From Beyond, but that’s less important than the lessons we, ourselves, take from what we discover. (Kind of a microcosm that way.)
So back to earlier this week.
In the drawing of the medicine cards, you pull seven cards to discover what totemic animals are there to guide you along your path. Here’s what I drew:
- Turtle
- Frog
- Moose
- Snake
- Buffalo
- Bat
- Ant
Okay, I hear you ask, but what does it mean? Glad you asked.
| card position | what it represents | card I drew | what it means |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | spritual guide | Turtle | “Mother Earth” |
| 2nd | protector of my innocence | Frog | “cleansing” |
| 3rd | path to goals | Moose | “self-esteem” |
| 4th | wise counsel, when to speak/listen | Snake | “transmutation” (as in poison to life; life-death-rebirth cycle) |
| 5th | guardian of Dreamtime and new realities | Buffalo | “prayer and abundance” |
| 6th | how to stay grounded and on path | Bat | “rebirth” |
| 7th | how to find heart’s joy | Ant | “patience” |
The significance of the meaning of the Moose card is not lost on me. What surprised me for a moment was the recurrance of the rebirth motif between the Snake and Bat cards. I hadn’t expected those sorts of responses, but they’re dead on. I really am emerging from being emotionally, spirtually, and creatively dead, in to a whole new uncharted realm.
So maybe there is something to “the cards” after all.
Or maybe there’s just something to me.
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