Dear reader of signs,
Welcome to the Wednesday, the 28th of June’s observation from my daily ‘Reading the Signs’ June challenge, an exercise of paying attention with a focus in mind as the day unfolds.
As June winds down I’m low on decks and oracles. A couple of months ago a friend asked me how many decks I owned, and I speculated, ‘Maybe thirty?’ I was very close to the mark. I have thirty-two decks, based on my last tally, with another oracle I recently backed in a crowdfunding campaign that won’t arrive for another nine months to a year. This does not seem a great deal to me, but I’ve been collecting Tarot for several decades — although, I didn’t own more than one deck for the first five years or so.
This day I took up The Mystical Shaman Oracle, by Alberto Villoldo, Colette Baron-Reid, and Marcela Lobos, with art by Jena DellaGrottaglia. I drew 9: Completion.
I should preface this by noting that there are two subjects of Tarot / oracles decks that I’m leery about: faerie decks and shaman decks. Both those subjects tend to inspire artwork that doesn’t attract me (there are other problems, but that’s the subject for a different day). Recently, I relaxed and tried out this deck, which is pretty good, and DellaGrottaglia’s artwork is vibrant and layered. Villoldo and Lobos are both trained within South American shamanic traditions, while Baron-Reid is a medium. The deck mostly uses imagery within American/South American cultures, with a few cards representing mythology across the world. Personally, I would have preferred if the deck stuck to one tradition.
‘Completion’ features an ouroboros, the serpent eating its own tail. It’s a symbol that appears across the world. Mythologies about dragon/serpent/snakes are almost universal, and the creatures are often represented as encircling the world. They are invariably chthonic, mystical forces. One of my favourites deities, Ganesha, is sometimes depicted wearing a live cobra around his belly as a belt.
Generally, the ouroboros is the symbol of eternal renewal: as one cycles ends another replaces it. In this card there is a heart in the centre of the circle, with directional arrows at the four main compass points. The heart can be the best guide when unsure what to do when change occurs.
I recorded a podcast with a friend yesterday (more on that when it’s out) and as I discussed my writing career I was struck by how issues come up in cycles. You work through them, but they return later, in a slightly different form and must be tackled again. Through our conversation I was reminded of some wisdom from the past, and how it is remains applicable today.
We keep learning certain lessons, until they finally stick.