Hard Work Ahead

I remember getting my first tarot card reading when I was maybe eleven or twelve.

It's a strange memory because no one else shares it. I've asked my mom and my aunt, who I think were there, but they don't remember it. All the same, the experience stands out in my mind very clearly.

We were visiting my aunt Mart's friend in Florida. My aunt Mart is my mom's older sister, whose real name is Joyce. She is a true free spirit who at that time in her life lived in North Carolina near my family. She wrote and performed her own music, and made her living channeling spirits and leading workshops helping people live spiritually-connected lives.

Mart lived spontaneously and moved at her own pace. She was an excellent lecturer, having been a college-level science professor earlier in her life. She had a lot of different forces moving within her--music, poetry, science and a way of being in-the-moment that often went in unexpected, but wonderful, directions.

I wouldn't be who I am in many ways without Mart. She had a huge influence on my life, my beliefs, and my way of looking at the world. Because of who she is, and was at that time, she brought experiences and people into my life that I wouldn't have known otherwise. I spent a lot of time in her little cabin, which was a short walk from my house.

I admired that my aunt had a lot of friends. One of my favorites was Bill Stanbury, an energetic black-haired man with big, wild eyes, who was always kind to me. They would sing and make music together, what Mart called 'Spirit Music' where she'd let loose and speak in tongues.

Spirit was a big word in Mart's life, and it became a big word in mine. To play spirit music was to be fully in touch with yourself and the universe. To move in the spirit was to act, but to act in tune with a universal plan. 

The Spirits were a conglomerate which I generally understood to mean God, universal will, Jesus, certain aliens, and lots of other beings who were in soul form. Many of these folks gave Mart direct messages and seemed to have a benevolent interest in helping us.

At the time of this memory, we were visiting Mart's friend Loretta who lived in Florida. Bill Stanbury was there, and had a deck of tarot cards. He asked me if I'd ever gotten a reading before. It was a serious question. I never had, but was curious about these cards which seemed magical and powerful, a connection between us and the spirits. 

Bill shuffled the worn deck with his tanned, energetic hands. He seemed more calm and composed than I'd ever seen him. We sat in Mart's friend Loretta's living room on a beige carpet, surrounded by soft beige furniture, crystals, and large, resonant stone singing bowls.

He laid out ten cards in a special pattern that would give information and feedback about my past, present and future. He didn't consult a book, but just studied each card for a quiet moment, then told me things about it. This particular deck was an herbal tarot deck, so each card featured a standard member of the major or minor arcana, plus a particular plant. 

The card that stood out for me from this experience was a card that showed a young boy offering a young girl a slice of watermelon. She stood contemplating the watermelon, with her hands behind her back. 

Bill said this card represented how I wouldn't accept the gifts offered to me. I imagined abundance, as tempting as the red watermelon in the picture, and considered the figure of the little girl. It seemed an accurate statement. When Bill later offered to give me the deck of cards I was hesitant, not wanting to deprive him of something so precious. But he insisted, and I eventually accepted. I was absolutely delighted to have the cards.

I kept the deck for many years, consulting it during particularly moody times, always feeling serious about the cards I drew. As I got older, though, it seemed increasingly silly to seek guidance from a deck of cards. What was I really expecting to get from the ten-card spread?

Sometime in my late 20's I packed them up and gave them to Goodwill, still believing enough in the Spirits that I knew they would find the right person.

Recently a pack of these very same cards has come back into my life thanks to my spouse, who is on a path of deep seeking. I was at first unenthusiastic about them. Why would I invite this vulnerability back into my life? It wasn't that I was no longer vulnerable. But I was in a different emotional place. I remembered the earlier years and how often I would turn to these cards when I needed validation that my life meant something. The deck had eventually failed me, or I'd failed it, by placing that weight on it.

Opening the deck changed my mind. I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed looking at the images. I never thought very hard about how they were created, who drew them and the reasons they'd chosen these bright, heartening shades of color. The combined complexity and cartoonish style of the illustrations hit me in a really powerful way. Even though these cards were new, it felt like something old and good was returning to me at a time in my life when I really needed it, and could appreciate it.

I don't have a routine with these cards. Sometimes, during a pause in my day, I pull one. Other times I go a week, or several weeks, without looking at them. The deck comes with a little paper booklet of meanings. When I choose a card I always consult the little booklet, but mostly I like breathing and being quiet and looking at the picture on the card.

I recently pulled a card showing a figure sitting with a gardening hoe:

The booklet said the card meant there was hard work ahead.

I'm working harder now than I ever have. There is the work of my job, and the work of being a parent; work with my spouse and family. That's the meat of my life. That makes my gears turn and keeps me grounded. Then there's some bonus stuff, the work of making music happen, and my friendships with a few patient people, and the work I do volunteering at the NICU. There's the work of generally being a person who is alive in the world. 

None of this is easy. I'm up at 3 a.m. at the moment because, as my other wonderful aunt Jake might say, the spirits were after my feet to get up and do something creative.

It has been hard to believe in my creative work, and even harder to buckle down and stick with a project. But something in me needs to see me making progress now. Some part of me is watching and waiting to grow through giving steady attention to this.

With regard to creative work I am often like the person on the card, sitting with the hoe. I contemplate a field without doing anything about it. I haven't put my tool in the dirt and tested my muscles. 

I know better than to make a specific goal. I know how my self starts working against me whenever I make that kind of commitment. So this isn't a promise or some shiny new start. It's just me deciding to pick up the hoe and stand. 

Spirits be with me.