The Equinox and Tarot

"Corn and grain, corn and grain,
All that falls shall rise again."
-  Wiccan Harvest Chant

Carolyn Cushing from Easthampton, MA, owner of The Art of Change Tarot, poet, and all around sweetie-pie, ran a lovely Equinox Circle Teleseminar last evening.  I was honored to be invited.

There is something so magical about the Autumn Equinox...I notice I often cannot tell when spring turns to summer or when fall turns to winter (the Summer and Winter Solstices), as solstice seasonal-turnings always tend to blur into each other in my view. 

But the Equinoxes...they are both unmistakable.  After the starkness and silence of winter, spring bursts forth.  And after the brilliance and lushness of summer, all of nature suddenly pauses, cools, and turns inward in the autumn.  The Equinoxes are far more dramatic to me.  And for that reason, far more magical.

Here is an autumn poem to savor, from Annie Finch:

A Crown of Autumn Leaves By Annie Finch
For Mabon (fall equinox), Sept. 21

Our voices press from us
and twine around the year's fermenting wine
Yellow fall roars
Over the ground. Loud, in the leafy sun that pours
Liquid through doors,
Yellow, the leaves twist down

as the winding of the vine
pulls our curling voices--
Glowing in wind and change,
The orange leaf tells
How one more season will alter and range,
Working the strange
Colors of clamor and bells

In the winding of the vine
our voices press out from us to twine
When autumn gathers, the tree
That the leaves sang
Reddens dark slowly, then, suddenly free,
Turns like a key,
Opening air where they hang

and the winding of the vine
makes our voices turn
and wind with the year’s fermented wine
One of the hanging leaves,
Deeply maroon,
Tightens its final hold, receives,
Finally weaves
Through, and is covered soon

in the winding of the vine--
Holding past summer's hold,
Open and strong,
One of the leaves in the crown is gold,
Set in the cold
Where the old seasons belong.

Here is my crown
Of winding vine,
Of leaves that dropped,
That fingers twined,
another crown
to yield and shine
with a year’s
fermented wine.
***
So what is the connection between the Equinox and tarot, the title of this post?  Any dramatic time of change always inspires me to pull out my tarot deck.  Tarot does not interest me as a fortune-telling device, nor do I think it's particularly helpful to use as a predictive tool.  Instead, I use it to mirror what is going on around and inside me--more as a psychological tool.  I find it extremely helpful to deepen my connection to my inner self, and also to point out what is happening around me or within me that I may simply not have noticed.  Those little painted cardboard pictures have a way of going straight to the heart of things.

While I would have done an Equinox reading anyway, when Carolyn emailed last week to say that she was doing a teleseminar on the topic, and would I be interested, I jumped at the chance.  Carolyn is a wonderful reader, although "reader" is perhaps a poor description of what she does; she is actually a superb prompter and question-asker, two things I deeply appreciate.  She believes, as I do, that the answers to our questions are already within, only needing to be coaxed out by the right questions.

In 90 minutes last night, our small group of truly wonderful women (I believe there were only about 7 or 8 of us, the perfect size for a circle), guided by Carolyn's pre-planning and skill, opened an Equinox Circle and welcomed the Triple Goddess in the form of Persephone, Baba Yaga, and Sheela na Gig.  Quite the trio.  Carolyn had drawn these three Goddesses as the guides for our group from Ellen Lorenzi-Prince's Dark Goddess Tarot.  That is a deck I do not own (which didn't matter for our purposes last night).

Based on her drawing of this trio, Carolyn had formulated the following four prompts for us to use when doing some Equinox Tarot Play together:

1. What judgment of yourself can you release into the light at this time?  (Release)
2. How to approach the threshold of the tomb-time that leads to womb-time?  (Approach)
3. Whom to invite to travel with you from the light into the dark?  (Helper)
4. What strange/weird/ugly part of yourself would it be beneficial to cultivate in the growing dark?  (Action)

Participants used a variety of decks, from the Gaian to the Dark Goddess.  I used my "homie" deck, the Thoth.

I pulled the following four cards in answer to the above four questions.

DEATH--QUEEN OF DISKS--PRINCE OF DISKS--5 OF CUPS

Of course, all of us pulled different cards.  Carolyn then skillfully led us through a discussion of how these four prompts drew answers from us as we each looked at our cards.  My own interpretation of my cards was:

1. Release--Death:  Let go of all my illusions about how the current change in my life is going to happen.
2. Approach--Queen of Disks:  She is resting, feeling comfortable and secure; I too can feel this way, and now is a good time to look back and take the long view of where I have been thus far.
3. Helper--Prince of Disks:  A pat on the back to keep working on the practical issues that I am working on. 
   [AN ASIDE:  Here I began to notice that the circular "bubbles"/illusions in the Death card showed up in the Queen of Disks as her shield/globe, a very material, non-illusory disk...then they showed up again in this Prince of Disks card, both in the globe/disk he carries and in the circular chariot on which he's mounted--the disk is starting to move.]
4. Action--5 of Cups:  This 4th question of Carolyn's caused quite a bit of discussion in the group as participants struggled to see how the "strange, weird, ugly" parts of ourselves needed to be developed and nurtured as we enter into the growing darkness of Autumn.  For me, the 5 of Cups, which Crowley calls "Disappointment," (Mars in Scorpio) spoke about the need for me to know that it's all right for me to continue to go deeper and deeper emotionally (and also to work on being more balanced emotionally).  A nice affirmation, as I sometimes feel I should be out in the world "doing things" by now.  I know I'll get there eventually, but for now, I am where I need to be.
   
   The capstone to the teleseminar was a short guided meditation by Carolyn, in which we were to listen for any additional message the turning of the season brings.  Mine actually arrived before she could even start the meditation, and I knew immediately how true it was for me.  With thanks to Carolyn for her work, here it is.
   

"Leaves will fall, and blow away.
Do not interfere."

To close, a Mary Oliver poem HERE.