Shut the front door

 

Challenges come in many forms, today as most days lately, it is my legs.  It is hard to think of what to do and when to do it when the pain and discomfort are seemingly just too much. Too much whining, too much complaining doesn't resolve issues. I can see why we can get stuck in patterns when your focus is also stuck. Even I don't like to listen to myself and I normally do.

The Fairy Tarot

Waiting with patience

 

"Ladybugs Katherine, lots and lots of ladybugs" ~ Under the Tuscan Sun (movie)

Sometimes we want and wish for a thing too hard, too much. Best to set your intention and send it out into the Universe. Don't worry about when your 'ladybug' shows up, just know that it will. The waiting on can be a nail biter. Focus on the here and now; that's the real challenge, waiting with patience.

Spiritsong Tarot

Another go

 

So things didn't work out. Remember the old adage 'try, try, and try, again.  Thomas Edison worked and failed many times when trying to make a lightbulb. 

"I didn't fail; I just found 2000 ways not to make a lightbulb. "       ~Thomas Edison

Scorpio Sea Tarot

Turning a corner

 

Yesterday I had a Reiki session. Had not had one since tornado recovery, when I knew I needed energy healing, as I was so fractured. With my heart a fluttering I made an appointment after leaving hospital a week or so back. It helped; I feel a bit more centered. My heart asked for help and what the heart wants the heart gets. One recommendation is doing some grounding work. The winter has had me locked away from the Earth; this week offers a glimpse of Spring with a few days of warmer weather. I will be out and placing my bare feet on the beautiful Earth. Bonding and Grounding. Releasing and Recharging. The harshness of winter is almost behind me.  

The Good Tarot ~ Colette Baron-Reid

Hostage

 

........ still in thinking mode.

Spiritsong Tarot ~ Paulina Cassidy

Persistence

Persistence * New possibilities.
Subtitles to this typical Five of Pentacles.
Do hardships make us stronger?
Is it true that God gives us no more than we can handle?
Me, myself, and I have slid into a place of shadows. Like this ladybug I need to climb myself out of the depths to a place where I can shudder my wings and dissipate the melancholy that I am cloaked in.  This to shall pass as it usually does, but the lingering is a burden.




Spiritsong Tarot
Paulina Cassidy

Compare, select

Worry less. Count your blessings more.
We can choose our reaction to the shadows. 
Woe is me, or say to oneself, I can do this. 
Grab a hold of the good and let go of the things that don't work.

Stay home

Thankfully I have a home.  Easy, simple living.  I scaled way back years ago out of need and necessity.  I am grateful that I have a place to lay my head and provisions within.  The traditional Five of Pentacles has those out, looking for an in (inn).  I am ever so grateful for the comfort of home, especially so during these days and also it is a cold rain out there now. 
Would I like more, well yes, some days; I am human after all.  Then I realize I have more than enough and I am happy.
I will offer assistance when I can and always grateful it was offered when I needed.

Coat of a different color

Idk about all those candles, especially worn on a head full of hair?  Distracting from the energy of a knight of wands. 
Today I see a new nurse practitioner, maybe she will have red hair and some new ideas of treatment on the condition of my legs.  I have not been on a knight's adventure or expedition in a while, so hopefully something to lesson the nerve damage issues.  I am not about doctors, those masked white coat demigods; so I have shied away from the profession.  Recommended by a friend, hopefully she will be more enlightened. 




The Good Tarot

A bend in the road

Does everything look better in the light of day?  Maybe, maybe not.  This gal looks like she has turned from the light.  Was this a conscious choice or just a misstep? Sometimes we can get lost and not even know it.  Taking one step off the path and then another until we look around and realize that we have gone astray.  Forward is the only way from wherever we are.

"A bend in the road is not the end of the road, if you remember to take the turn."  Joan Lunden

Boot straps

Remembering an old saying, when challenged 'pull yourself up by your bootstraps.'  Get up and get going. This Five of Pentacles speaks to me of being challenged and working through it. In difficult times we can look forward to the reward of completing something difficult.
Six years ago I was intent on trying to convince myself and others that I was unchanged, I didn't give myself the opportunity to see if something else was suitable.  The time has come.  Opportunity is my 'Word' of the year and I want to make the best of it.  I noticed that the word change is held within challenge, and that is very telling. The biggest change has to come from within, my mindset, and that will be challenging.

"Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself." ~ Rumi


Celestial Tarot

On Guard

What others think of you is none of your business.

"I am able to laugh at life and at myself. I choose not to be offended by anything or anyone."  -quote from my daily affirmation calendar

I heard the top line in an on-line video; a  quote they used and one I have heard before. Between the card, the quote, and the affirmation I can pretty well bet that someone is going to say or do something that will try to diminish me.
It make me think of what another blogger Bev King mentioned in her recent post about meditation. That meditation makes us aware of the incessant chatter in the back of our mind that continues all day long.
For today I will be mindful and not allow another to make their troubles mine.



Rider Waite-Smith Tarot

Challenges

Woe is me

Sometimes a test is a good thing.  Everything is fine and dandy and then bing, we get a swat.  It can be a challenge to be grateful for such moments or occurrences.  With hindsight we can see that they set us on a different path. A choice we would have not considered but ended up being in our best interest or expanded our knowledge or our viewpoint.
Gratitude is the Abracadabra and can help make the best out of not so good situation

Victimhood

Awe Crud.

Hope this won't be a day of not feeling well or something occurs that I get all, despondent over. 
I was a not so pretty, badly broken, gal when I came through the tornado trauma five years ago.  Only once do remember saying "Why Me?"  Well why not me?  I would not have wished what I went through and I am still going through on another.  Sometimes stuff happens.  One thing I did learn to adjust to, was taking offered assistance when given. 

Does misery really love company?




The Marco Polo Tarot

Confusion

Restriction

The fives usually relay conflict and loss.  I also see them as the middle point, the fulcrum of change as we progress through the story line of the suit in the minors.  The Five of Pentacles has always given me a pause for thought and a bit of confusion.  How can we go from the stinginess of the Miser in the four of pentacles to the open generosity portrayed in the six of pents?  Those views  of pentacles come from the Rider Waite Smith Tarot.  I am not sure what the author is suggesting to us here in this version, except the name sake of the card-Restriction. Yet they don't look restricted, rather the pentacles have broken the bonds that held them. 

I wonder what happens in the between time from one day to the next?  When one day is good and you wake up the next day and the feelings are not so good, just to be rebounded by another pretty good day.   My pentacles are all over the place, maybe I need to put tethers on my thoughts?

The Sacred Circle Tarot  - Anna Franklin & Paul Mason

Shelter in place

What we think about we bring about?  Most interpretations of this card are negative.  I say who needs it?

It must of taken me five attempts to scan and save this card.  I guess I just do not want to have this vision of hardship play in my head or play with my head today.  Who needs omens or hints of a crappy day.  Everything is pretty good in my world at the moment and I just as soon keep it that way.
I usually see fives as a fulcrum point in the middle of the line of the ten cards of the suit in the Minor Arcana, a sort of tipping point. It reminds of the balance card that I posted below Justice yesterday and will again at the bottom of this post.  If things are out balance I best see what is on the scales.  If things start to tip towards the negative today I will rephrase my thoughts.

"Don't underestimate the value of doing nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering."
  - Winnie the Pooh


Journey through the Gaian Tarot - Joanna Powell Colbert