the tarot home of jaymi elford: readings, thoughts, and more
Author: innowen
Jaymi Elford lives a tarot inspired life. A deck is always close at hand. She believes tarot is a perfect companion to help explore the world we live in. The author of Tarot Inspired Life and Triple Goddess Tarot continues to study, write, and create tarot innovation from her home in Portland, OR. Find her works in Llewellyn, Lo Scarabeo, The Cartomancer, The Tarosophist, and Megalithica Books. She also co-hosts two podcasts: Tarot Visions with Rose Red Robinson and Cardslingers with Melissa Cynova and Hilary Parry Haggerty. Finally, she’s slightly addicted to teaching techniques at tarot conferences.
Only 20 days left until the Readers Studio. Can I get a *woo*! Yeah. Today’s major arcana card of the countdown is none other than the Magician. Another one of my personal faves, (seems like all these first cards are the easy and fun ones, huh?) The Magician stands for manifesting one’s dreams. This card describes a person who knows how to take all the elements the world gives us and combines them in ways to take their dreams and turn them into reality.
Usually manifesting my dreams is something I am very good at doing. However, I’m in the midst of some heavy hitting changes in my life (including a move from one location to another). I’m distracted and not feeling up to manifesting anything. However, I know that I can turn this frown upside down and take this card in as an opportunity to use these changes going on and to really sit down and understand what I want out of the next few weeks leading up to The Readers Studio (and eventually beyond the trip) so that I can achieve everything I want my life to have.
The Lovers from the Gaian Tarot by Joanna Powell Colbert
The next stop on this journey is The Lovers. When I first saw this card, I smiled. The Lovers is all about friendship, love, and the pursuit of living a completely fulfilling life. Which is an endeavor we all should try and strive for in life.
That said, in my Readers Studio journey, The Lovers shows my happiness and excitement for the upcoming adventure. Going to one Readers Studio is like being in heaven. However, being able to attend the Readers Studio for two years in a row is amazingly divine. I get to gather with my tarot tribe, expand my tarot repertoire, and indulge in the number one love of my life (after my husband, kender)–tarot, of course! I love learning new techniques, and I cannot wait to see what James Wanless, James Wells, and Shawn Nacol has to offer us this year. I’m also excited because I get a 4 day slumber party with Drew and RoseRed. *squee*
The Hanged Man from the Shadowscapes Tarot by Stephanie Pui-Mun Law
The Hanged Man, a card near and dear to my heart, is the first stop on our journey. There is a dualistic meaning to this card. The first, to see things with a new perspective, comes from the fact that the critters on the card are usually placed in a upside down position. When I draw this card for others, I try and get them to look at things as if they were standing on their heads. Secondly, this card is a card of sacrifice. This meaning comes from the story of Odin and how he sacrificed himself on the World Tree to gain the knowledge of the ruins to save his people.
So, in my Readers Studio journey, The Hanged Man reminds me to keep an open mind. While I attended last year’s Studio, I cannot let those preconceived notions to rule my time. Readers Studio will be everything I want it to be, as well as nothing I want. 🙂
My good friend Drew reminded me that tomorrow kicks off the ’22 days until Readers Studio 2012.” I mentioned that it would be fun to draw a Major arcana card a day for a countdown and he agreed to whip up a list of random cards. For those who don’t understand the connection, here’s the explanation: there are 22 cards in the Major Arcana. These are the cards most people think about when they hear the word “Tarot”. Specifically, The Fool, The Devil, The Lovers, etc. Hence the reason for my excitement. Then he challenged myself and RoseRed to blog, or tweet, or post our thoughts about each card.
This little countdown kicks off tomorrow and goes daily until Wednesday the 25th. Of course, I also plan on trying to blog from the conference itself… however, my track record on being able to do this isn’t too great. If you’re interested in joining in our merry little project you can contact me (or Drew) and get the list we’re working from. Or you can create your own and join in. Can I blog something small each day about the majors? Stay tuned to find out.
This month’s tarot blog hop, run by the awesome Donnaleigh, is Ostara: Paint a journey with new life. I’d like to welcome all the readers from Koneta’s site at http://www.newpathstarot.com/.
I had a hard time coming up with a topic for this month’s blog hop. Ostara, is all about the return of the sun, Nature renewing herself in fresh scents, and a time for us to begin new projects. It’s about painted eggs (a group I used to belong to did pagan-flavored Ostara eggs), and bunnies and lots of blossoming flowers. However, the twist and issue came in what to paint as a journey. What am I painting that can be seen as a journey with life?
The Moon from the Shadowscapes Tarot
So, I pulled out my trusty Shadowscapes Tarot, meditated on this topic, shuffled, and drew The Moon. At first, I wasn’t sure what this card was trying to say to me, but as I sat with it and pondered both the image and the symbolism a small seed started to form. My mind kept going back to one small symbol appearing in this card. The mask that the woman holds in her hand. Currently, I am working with a beautiful mask in my spiritual practice. I felt that it was no coincidence that the two shall meet for this post. After all, masks are created, painted, and worn; and the blog hop topic is about painting a journey with new life. This idea also fits in with the name of my domain: tarot inspired life, and so I will share some thoughts about this mask, the journey I am on, and how it fits into this post.
Masks have always intrigued me, in their colors, their size, and the way we all use them. In a sense, the Tarot, as a tool for self reflection, help, and insight also has masks. Each card in itself is a mask, something that we can use and incorporate into our own being. The roles we play in life are also masks. I wear the mask of a writer, a tarotista, and an editor quite often. And now, I can also add to the list that I wear the mask of Lilith, as an avatar for Her voice.
Last September, a friend honored me by asking me to partake in a year-long goddess exploration. Each one of us received a mask made by the very talented Lauren Raine. I selected to walk the year with Lilith, a goddess who I have no experience with. Or so I thought. This group has 5 other goddessi (as I like to call us collectively). Each one of us wears a different goddess mask. This September will mark the end of my journey at Fall Equinox (which is Ostara’s opposite side) in a ritual of dance, song, and music at the Northwest Fall Equinox Festival here in Oregon.
Me in the Lilith Mask
Lilith, as I have come to know her, is a powerful goddess. She is very pro-individual and all about self-empowerment. She forces us to look deep within and accept and integrate the parts of us that are wounded and discarded. She has been said to be a patron for those who are adopted, discarded by society, or abused. I have been walking with her for 7 months and she has guided me into a deeper place of spirituality. She is like the woman on The Moon card of the Shadowscapes card: where she is holding her heart out for all who can see, and looking down at the mask in her hand as if she was talking, or communing with it. In the mask’s eyes, which we call portals, I see Lilith’s desire for me to know myself, to reflect on who I am and where I want to go in life, and attempt to grow and nurture those areas of my life with deeper meaning. For there is much in my life I need to reconcile whole into my being. The journey I am on, seems to have three stages.
During the first months of my journey with her, in what I call Stage One, I tried to form an un-biased opinion of who she was. I put on the mask, talked to Lilith, and made an altar. I thought about what I knew of her and what she could teach me. And once I came up with a starting point, then I started looking at books for more information. In the devotional, Lilith: Queen of the Desert, there were parts of it that fit almost too well, where it gave me the impression that Lilith HAS been by my side for a long time. It just took this moment in time for me to realize it, open up to the idea that I was hers, and learn what it means to have her by my side as I grow through life. This first stage ended with me teaching a class on how others could use the major arcana archetypes to uncover their own self-power.
Stage Two is diving deep into this journey. I have no idea what that is, other than looking within and dusting off the cobwebs of myself and my spirit, in order to reconcile my past so that I can know how to successfully take others through this journey when their times come. Meditation and Tarot have been my trusted tools in this journey. In doing this work, I’ve been meditating a lot. I’ve also been asking questions of the tarot and seeing the responses I get as being from Lilith herself. Like Rachel Pollack who likes to ask the Universe, and God, bigger-picture questions about the world we live in and how it was created, I use the cards to help paint a picture of where I need to delve into my core being next; to lift the masks concealed in my subconscious off the wall, and examine them, their texture, their symbolism and wear them so that I can integrate these masks back into the whole of myself.
Stage Three, I fear, will be the hardest thing for all of us on this journey. I only know it by the feelings of “release and let go”. I mentioned this last Wednesday when I saw three of the goddessi. This final stage will come after we have danced the ritual, to heal the divine feminine, and shared our stories with a larger community, and then… have to give the masks back. I am not looking forward to that day. When I have to wrap Lilith up in her clothes, and take her back to her owner. When that time comes, I have asked that our group hold space and a ritual to honor the time, our journeys… so we can honor the loss and grieving of the masks going home.
Until then, I will continue walking this journey: learning more about myself, my goddess, and what it means to be part of the feminine divine using the best tool I have…my Tarot decks.
