For the longest time she was looking for the coat.  She learned about it first as a child.  “When you’re older,” her mother said, “You’ll find your coat, it’s unique, yours alone.  Look carefully because it could be anywhere.  When you find it don’t let it go, it will be your way.”

She looked for the coat diligently.  Throughout her teenage years she watched as others found their coats, their ways to be.  She saw girls grabbing at velvets and brocade, striding out in confidence.  She envied the rich colours;  ruby red, emerald green, shameless purple.  One day, she thought, mine will be there one day, and then I’ll know and I’ll finally be.

Years passed, she searched and searched; among thrift stores, in the high streets, rummaging through jumble sales tables, searching catalogues and in pattern files.  Still no coat.

She found some, yes, very beautiful in vibrant, gorgeous fabrics.  She even tried them, for a while.  But they were too tight, or the fabric irritated, one even choked her when she did up the top button and she discarded it quickly.

After a while she gave up, she had searched for so long.  She still envied others their coats, still admired them from afar, but knew hers was just a dream.  She returned to the generic mac of her youth and her step lost its spring.

And then came the rain.  It rained for weeks.  After one particularly bad shower she staggered into the house and began peeling off her layers.  She set aside the dull, damp mac, she peeled off her jeans and her sweater, removed her sodden, squelchy shoes and socks.  She brushed her fingers over her damp skin.  And gasped.

Her coat.  Soft and supple. Protecting her daily from cold and damp. Fitting her perfectly.    She flexed her arms and legs, stretched up and outwards, beginning an awkward dance of celebration as she realised the gift.  After decades of searching,  finding the journey’s end closer than imagining.  Unique. Priceless. Her own skin.

I was asked the other day if sacred space was important to me; I don’t know what prompted the question, maybe the large picture of our local, medieval parish church which hangs on my wall.  Anyway it got me to thinking about what that means.  More often than not for me I experience the sacred out of doors, in the garden or forest, or on a wind swept cliff top.  But there are other moments too.  Tonight, with both teenagers out at the same time for the first time in months, I find myself alone in the house.  Eventually I faced up to the pile of ironing that’s been growing apace.  Standing in the kitchen listening to some jazz, alone with my thoughts, suddenly the mundane moment became my sacred space, an uninterrupted pause, a patterned rhythm of activity.  I was calmed and soothed, rocked by the action of my arms as they smoothed the fabric and my hips as I danced from side to side.  This time alone is so rare and precious.  It is the powerhouse which fuels me, the space to be alone with my thoughts, to allow them to drift and blend, meld and meander.  It is the space that  Jean Shinoda Bolen, M.D.speaks of in her talk “Crones Don’t Whine” (http://jungchicago.org/blog/), the rare time when a woman can be alone and think.  It is a precious gap in the every day,  longed for and, when found, treasured and protected.  It is in these moments that I am restored to myself.

I’m going to be working through Lizzy Worth’s Enter the Oracle challenge this month (see http://www.lizworth.com/ ).  This is part of continuing work to reconnect with my creative/ intuitive self.  Lizzy suggested a new moon reading with a few key questions and this is what came up. I used The Wildwood Tarot  (http://thewildwoodtarot.com/) :

My reading –
You are at the start of a new phase of life’s journey, the path is before your feet. Trust your inner guide to lead you by safe paths. You will find a new life and energy to enable you to work creatively, in tune with the natural flow of life. To do this you need to learn from the joyous, blessed Earth, living from your truest self. Preparing the ground by clearing the old will allow for new growth. Welcome this as part of life’s cycle and let it bring healing.

So may it be.

I am a planner.  I love organising, lists, schedules.  I’m good at it too.  When faced with a challenge I never want to sit back and see what happens next, I want to plot a course out.  This requires some reflection, coloured pens, paper. Then I scribble and write, plan, cross out, throw it away, start again.  Usually within a week I know where I’m going next and how and why.  I could explain it to anyone who asks in clear, logical steps.

Right now though that isn’t really working.  I had a great plan.  It followed logical next steps.  There was career progression, tied to a good income, there was the possibility of finally getting my name on some property.  I had a sense, as the plan fell into place, of a journey ending.  I could see this situation stretching out, over the next three, five, ten years.  I could see myself driving the route to work in each season, as my children fly the nest and I  move towards my crone-hood.

Or maybe not.  Over the past two months my health has been unusual, to put it mildly.  I can’t drive at present.  This means when my holiday ends, I may not be able to get into work.  There is a sense of suspension, of not quite knowing where I am or how I got here.  Of disbelief and shock.

This is the energy of The Tower . A sudden, unexpected change; the collapse of our carefully set plans and projects.  The crash of blocks as we add the final, too-much piece.  And the inevitable cry of “it’s not fair”.

Maybe not.  But maybe it isn’t fair anyway.  Maybe it is nature’s way of saying, too much already.  Stop.  This is too tall, what you’re building, too shaky to stand.  Maybe it is a way of shocking me awake.  Of reminding me of where I really wanted to be, when I wasn’t trying to follow a “logical” path, or the kind of life that would “make sense” when I laid it out for other people.

Maybe now is the time for crayon scribbling brilliance; for clashing, crazy colours.  The time for breaking apart, like ivy through stone, for unblocking the stream.  For giving up the safety of my tower, leaving the ruins behind and seeing what’s out there in the forests and wild moors.

 

As part of work on Beth Maiden’s “The Alternative Tarot” course ( see  http://tarotcourse.littleredtarot.com/) I’m currently drawing a card a day and working with a journal to reflect on this.  Sometimes my question is along the lines of “What do I need to know today?”  today it was “What do I need to hear today?” I woke up feeling really poorly and unsettled and sad for no obvious reason so I wasn’t sure what would come up.  Maybe something fun like a four of bows, with flames and dancing?  Maybe something to reassure or console?

I am using The Wildwood Tarot this week, which is beautiful and timeless and I am fast falling in love with (http://thewildwoodtarot.com/).  I shuffled the cards, split the deck and paused for a moment to see where I should draw from.  This is the card.

Which is somewhat dramatic but made me laugh too.  The figure here looks to me, today, very woebegone.  She is struggling literally against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.  Not only is she wounded many times, she is also tangled in powerful brambles which tie her down and restrict her.  She stands on a rock where the image of a skull is carved suggesting loss.

This reflects exactly where I find myself today.  The sense of insecurity and fear are powerful, both due to physical health and changes in my personal and professional life.  I am reading, presently, about the cycle of life/ death / life we experience (see Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, chapter 5) and am deeply aware of my own desire to avoid the “ebb” times in life, those times when I need to let go, or step back to allow for new growth in future.

The guide suggests that we need to forgive ourselves ( and sometimes others) for past mistakes in order to help us heal from our unfounded fears and insecurities so that we are ready for new growth.  I find myself thinking about a situation where I am in a job which I know is no longer right, about how this has been the case on and off in different jobs for several years as I seek a work pattern which enables good health and balance and how often I am critical of myself for this.  This is a timely message, reflecting the mood of the day and indicating a healing next step.

I have had many thoughts of late about crossing boundaries, the kind of boundaries that exist in society and our institutions. The kinds that we create for ourselves; the lines we don’t want to cross, the taboos we don’t want to break in case of rejection, or worse.

I wrote this piece at the start of July and it reflects on this theme:

It is there to protect us.  The barrier between civilisation and the wild.  Since childhood, at my mother’s knee, I was taught; you don’t cross the hedge.

It lies at the edge of the forest.  In younger years I would peer through gaps in the thorny branches and watch the  creatures and birds.  I could smell the deep, musty scent of fertile earth; the musk of the wild.

I found a gap one day. It beckoned me onward, an almost perfect tunnel through the thorns, low down and hidden from view.  But I was afraid, hearing my mother’s warnings and the fearful whisperings of the village women.  I knew the stories…the girls who dared to cross.  Those who vanished forever, and those who returned, changed; the ones we feared, rejected, burned.Years passed.  I wed. My own children grew.  I forgot the hedge, drawn into the everyday.

And then one morning, outside fetching water, I follow a low beam of early sunlight and find it again.  My feet take me closer with dream-like steps, towards the gap.  Peering through I see the dappled light fall between the trees beyond.  I can hear the wild ones calling me, feel the bloom of joy and hope in my heart.

Yet I hold back.

To cross the hedge is to leave the known and choose strange paths.  To be changed.  To risk getting lost.  There may be no way back; which I fear.  I fear even more that I won’t want one.

 

It began with a daily exercise through Nicole Cody’s site Cauldrons and Cupcakes (https://cauldronsandcupcakes.com/).  I needed to use oracle cards and had never heard of these before.  It may be useful to know at this point that the mainstream faith culture I am grown from treats such things as taboo and dangerous so ordering my first pack felt like a sneaky adolescent rebellion, a  cigarette at the back of the playing fields.  I chose a pack of Doreen Virtue’s angel cards, Mary Queen of Angels as the images were familiar and I could relate to the themes.

Since then I have acquired other oracle decks and have begun exploring tarot too.  I’ve found Little Red Tarot (http://littleredtarot.com/) helpful at presenting a fresh approach and thoughtful insights to this process and have registered for Beth’s excellent eight lesson course to help me to take the next steps.

As part of this learning it’s good to draw cards daily and reflect on them, write about them, share them.  Ta da!  Here are yesterday and today’s cards.

This card, from the Natures’ Whispers oracle deck by Angela Hartfield shows a tiny person resting peacefully.  They are both supported and surrounded by the leaf which is carrying them down a gentle stream.  The candles suggest guardian lights illuminating the journey even though she sleeps and the rainbow swirls in the water remind me of pleasant dreams.  The card reminds me of the need to rest, to take a break, to spend time recuperating.  This is apt at present as I’m still getting over a bout of labyrinthitis and it is just after the end of a busy term.  I put the card on the mantel shelf to remind me.

Today I was using the Angel Tarot deck from Doreen Virtue and Radleigh Valentine (http://www.angeltherapy.com/oracle-cards).  I didn’t shuffle the cards today (I find it difficult to shuffle them like playing cards as they are large and of a good thick card).  Instead I swirled them around on the table top (as suggested in The Alternative Tarot course – http://tarotcourse.littleredtarot.com/).  This was really good fun.  I then sat quietly with my eyes closed and asked my question which, most days is along the lines of “What do I need to know today?”.  Then I take a card.  This is still new to me and I always wonder what will arrive.

And it was this.  Which made me smile and also made me think I really should be listening to this message!  The unicorn is resting while the others watch over her, she is surrounded by peaceful, golden light.  The forest is calm and the leaf shown at the bottom of the card reminded me of the leaf holding the little sleeper (above).

It can be very difficult to make the time for rest and refreshment.  Even our leisure activities in busy lives can become another set of goals and achievements.  My practice is now to take  a few minutes each evening to stand barefoot in the garden and reconnect to the earth. And breathe.