TBH – From Darkness to Light

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Welcome to the Tarot Blog Hop, I hope you enjoy my entry and continue on to read all of the fabulous entries by my fellow Hoppers!

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“Everyone is a moon and has a dark side which he never shows to anyone” – Mark Twain

I’ve always been fascinated by the Moon. It never spoke to me when at Her full lusciousness but rather in depths of the night when Her face was not visible. The energies always tugged at me more than any other time and it was within this fullness of night that I begin to wonder about the darkness that is so often hidden from view and how the Moon can illuminate right to the core of the soul.

My journey as Pagan and Reader has always been to try and work to the depths of the soul and find truth, light and a path through. And like the Moon, we all ebb and flow, follow cycles and become something new but something familiar all at once. There has never been more of a time than this year I feel to really tune into the inner darkness and find the road to light. While I am anything but a proper love and light sort (my flavours sometimes run to the darker themes), I recognise that one can’t always live in the light nor can one live completely in the dark either. There has to be a balance, a culmination of the Soul’s journey and everything we learn along the way.

The cards that best illustrate that to me are The Journey, The Mirror and Moon on the Water (gorgeous cards from the Wildwood Tarot)

The Journey (Death)

“It is time to face the inevitable, to let the bones be laid bare and acknowledge the deepest aspects of your fears and desires. Do not fear change, because this is also a time of purification and realignment.”

The Crow is one of my Spirit Animals, my guides – as is the Stag and in some ways this card hits me the hardest because it brings to bear the stark realities of life – whether it be magical or mundane. It is the beginning of working with the Shadow, of wading through the Darkness toward a clearer path. This is one of the cards where the Moon is quite prominent, leading one toward the light or illuminating the path that lay ahead. Crows have always been aligned with Darkness, the occult, the Other but ultimately I find them to be powerful messengers; creatures that can not only survive but thrive using their keen intellect, connections and ability to adapt.

The Mirror (Hanged Man)

“In The Mirror, a surrender of will is required. Insights may come from dreams and meditations, but now is not the time to force the pace or drive on with a plan or desire until you have heard what your soul has to say, and your bruised and wounded spirit has been healed.”

The Mirror reflects our struggles, our highs and lows and the truth of things whether we wish it to or not. Ultimately our experiences, our ideas and our dreams are mirrored into the real world whether we want them to be or not. Reflection is a good way to walk through one’s darkness, one’s struggle and while it is never comfortable, it is sometimes necessary. To surrender will is to surrender to the darkness, the light and to the path that will ultimately find you making your way back to the centre of who you are. I won’t pretend that illumination is easy, there are parts of myself that I’d rather pretend were elsewhere or non-existent but as it stands, it’s not always the case. The Mirror is a portal to other worlds, it is the doorway to spirits and the contraption that trips us up, delivers self doubt and criticism so the Mirror is also the hurdle that we must overcome to be who we are. To learn to look beyond the reflection and see the naked truth that lay beyond.

Moon on Water (The Moon)

“Now your soul brings into your physical world the symbolic keys to the collective human subconscious. This may take the form of a desire to investigate or study a doctrine, philosophy or esoteric pursuit, or the wish to explore untapped sexual energy and experience a tighter spiritual bond with a partner through honesty and the expression of your hidden desires.”

This card is always a mystery to me, it speaks of things hidden or not yet revealed. It can herald secrets, darkness, intuition and oftentimes a truth hidden. As the moon moves through phases, so too does life and one must understand that change is inevitable, it may not always be welcome but it will happen. The tides change and new things are upon us, but the Moon also reflects the surface back to us and now may be the time to reflect upon yourself, your dreams and desires and see if you are now ready to follow them. Can you reflect on the hidden depths of yourself? Accept them? Embrace them? Work with them and understand them? Are they something you can let go of? The Moon can cast a shadow as easily as she casts light, it is up to us what we hold out into the light and what we let stay within the shadow. But sometimes, however hard or however frightening, we need to expose our Shadow to the Light and begin to see ourselves in all our resplendent glory.

And now for perhaps my favourite card of all time that beautifully illustrates moving from the darkness into the light, of engaging our entire soul for the journey and of finally shedding our old skin and becoming:

“Out of dark, stormy clouds comes a bright beam of sunlight which illuminates the moment of victory. What was perhaps looked upon as a painful death or great loss has been revealed as a rebirth into something better. Knowledge, willpower and trust in spirit have helped to create gold out of dross. Like the fabled Phoenix, the dragon rises from the symbolic ashes of an outworn existence or experience into a new and brighter cycle of life.”

Every time I see this card it brings forth the idea that nothing is permanent and change is always possible; a new day will dawn and with the chance to rewrite the direction of your life. I think it really does remind us that we can take any darkness and change it to light; with a roar and sense of purpose we can achieve great things. If I’m feeling down I look at this card, I think it is the most powerfully potent symbolism in any tarot deck for the Death card. It truly encapsulates the journey of the human spirit from despair to triumph, powerlessness to powerfulness and from the darkness into the light.

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Card Images: Wildwood Tarot/Will Worthington/Sterling Publishing Co Inc/Jun 2011

Celtic Dragon Tarot/DJ Conway & Lisa Hunt/Llewellyn Publications US/Nov 1999