On The Queen's Oracle
I spend a good deal of time communing with nature as part of my practice, and to the end of understanding those wild mysteries I frequently meditate and pray while totally immersed in wilderness.
Since I was transplanted from a coastal Atlantic town, learning to work with spirits of a new place was exciting and at times a little daunting. Since moving to Baltimore, I adopted a special relationship with the Gunpowder River and it's tributaries. Until moving here in 2004, I had only known Sea and Bay and Marsh as well as polluted little creek. It took me a while to get accustomed to the idea of Rivers quite like the Gunpowder; rocky and carved from stone in places, silty, marshy, and soft in others, until it finally enters the Chesapeake Bay...a body of water I adore. It wasn't the brackish mouth of the Potomac I had also grown up with; it has a rugged urban feel that mingles with the untouchable changing flow of current and rain. Every season here has it's beauty, but I have found my creative work with the land is most potent in the spring time, when the plants and trees are waking up for the year. The energy of life is palpable during this season, bending the trees to rub on one another and the river to splash further upon the rocks to create a unique forest music.
(This pic was taken that day, because as a photographer I tend to document my journeys!)
This particular Oracle was an unusual one, in that I'd previously just been content with scrying or tarot or runes and this was a wholly new and unique thing; the product of one such long meditation while held high aloft upon stones that overlooked the river.
(ENTS! :D)
It was in this way, in meditation with my Patroness, (the Morrighan, Anand specifically) that brought to me a series of words and flashes of imagery that helped explain the meanings; and it included both the natural world and the world that we humans have built because that is our true environment. In that, we strive to marry the worlds to one and maintain the balance.
The truth is, I find that a lot of pagans spend so much time in the astral that they neglect the goings on of the world around them. They flock to repeated healing sessions and let others do their homework for them; which is not to say that healing by others is bad. I mean that as a healer, working with the same person for the same issue that continues to crop up as a result of someone not taking responsibility or ownership for their behaviour, rather they are addicted to the good happy feels it gives them temporarily. Responsibility is so important and often ignored, and services by healers are often undervalued because they couldn't make the problem go away magically. It just doesn't work like that. In all things, moderation.
Within the course of about an hour and a half I had written down keywords and meanings for each card and conceptualized how they might appear. What I wound up with was something akin to an image you could scry with, unlike the traditional 'empty mind' approach that doesn't quite work for me anyhow, and find layers of meaning hidden among the images that might highlight or underline issues that dominate a single reading, while revealing another meaning for the next reading.
What I came up with, with due credit to the Forest, River, Wind, and Patron, I came up with something that's worked for me with some startling accuracy. Instead of being hokey about it, I opted to call it simply The Queen's Oracle after my Patron, but also as a shoutout to the archetype of 'Queen', and 'Sovereign' that isn't specifically Irish. There are 39 total cards as a way of honoring the women of my family who sortof fell victim to a family curse of dying in childbirth at the age of 39. (My mom broke that when she had my brother. :D) And of course, I don't expect that it will appeal to everyone and that's ok. As they say, you can be the ripest, juiciest peach in the world and there will still be someone that hates peaches.
Individual card set posts will be forthcoming, so stay tuned!
Since I was transplanted from a coastal Atlantic town, learning to work with spirits of a new place was exciting and at times a little daunting. Since moving to Baltimore, I adopted a special relationship with the Gunpowder River and it's tributaries. Until moving here in 2004, I had only known Sea and Bay and Marsh as well as polluted little creek. It took me a while to get accustomed to the idea of Rivers quite like the Gunpowder; rocky and carved from stone in places, silty, marshy, and soft in others, until it finally enters the Chesapeake Bay...a body of water I adore. It wasn't the brackish mouth of the Potomac I had also grown up with; it has a rugged urban feel that mingles with the untouchable changing flow of current and rain. Every season here has it's beauty, but I have found my creative work with the land is most potent in the spring time, when the plants and trees are waking up for the year. The energy of life is palpable during this season, bending the trees to rub on one another and the river to splash further upon the rocks to create a unique forest music.
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| The Gunpowder River in Spring |
This particular Oracle was an unusual one, in that I'd previously just been content with scrying or tarot or runes and this was a wholly new and unique thing; the product of one such long meditation while held high aloft upon stones that overlooked the river.
I prayed, and journeyed, and worked with the fiery new energy of the earth...tapping into the fire that brought the plants up from the soil, the leaves to burst forth from trees, and make the flowers bloom. I remember it fondly as a day that I truly fell in love with the area, because of the peace and creativity I was able to find in this place. It is not a secret; the forest has healing properties to salve our wounds as a species both figuratively and literally. Respectful treatment of our environment is part of the extended prayer of my paganism in general, that we are merely animated sacks of water seeking what is real and dreaming things into reality.
It was in this way, in meditation with my Patroness, (the Morrighan, Anand specifically) that brought to me a series of words and flashes of imagery that helped explain the meanings; and it included both the natural world and the world that we humans have built because that is our true environment. In that, we strive to marry the worlds to one and maintain the balance.
The truth is, I find that a lot of pagans spend so much time in the astral that they neglect the goings on of the world around them. They flock to repeated healing sessions and let others do their homework for them; which is not to say that healing by others is bad. I mean that as a healer, working with the same person for the same issue that continues to crop up as a result of someone not taking responsibility or ownership for their behaviour, rather they are addicted to the good happy feels it gives them temporarily. Responsibility is so important and often ignored, and services by healers are often undervalued because they couldn't make the problem go away magically. It just doesn't work like that. In all things, moderation.
Within the course of about an hour and a half I had written down keywords and meanings for each card and conceptualized how they might appear. What I wound up with was something akin to an image you could scry with, unlike the traditional 'empty mind' approach that doesn't quite work for me anyhow, and find layers of meaning hidden among the images that might highlight or underline issues that dominate a single reading, while revealing another meaning for the next reading.
What I came up with, with due credit to the Forest, River, Wind, and Patron, I came up with something that's worked for me with some startling accuracy. Instead of being hokey about it, I opted to call it simply The Queen's Oracle after my Patron, but also as a shoutout to the archetype of 'Queen', and 'Sovereign' that isn't specifically Irish. There are 39 total cards as a way of honoring the women of my family who sortof fell victim to a family curse of dying in childbirth at the age of 39. (My mom broke that when she had my brother. :D) And of course, I don't expect that it will appeal to everyone and that's ok. As they say, you can be the ripest, juiciest peach in the world and there will still be someone that hates peaches.
Individual card set posts will be forthcoming, so stay tuned!
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