Card of the Day: Nine of Cups

I’m kind of loving this card in the wake of yesterday’s new moon in Pisces. It’s traditionally associated with sensual pleasure, satisfaction, contentment and wishes fulfilled. With the sun rising earlier, setting later and warming everything more deeply through the lengthening days, this card is like a call to go outside and play.

I’m having my own journey with connecting to nature. Which, given that I am (and we all are) nature itself, is about connecting with myself. I didn’t grow up camping or feeling safe and comfortable in the woods. I was phobic about bugs from the jump, and it’s been a really long and sometimes super-embarrassing process to get closer. (My family once had to leave a vacation cabin early because 7-year-old me had a nervous breakdown about ants. Seriously.)

Living in the country for the last 14 years has helped, as have a wilderness skills retreat I did at the Monastery, and the half-dozen hermitages I’ve done. But it’s still a struggle sometimes. (The tick situation Does. Not. Help.) As I mentioned in a previous post, an anti-racism/ancestral recovery course I’m taking has as one of its ongoing assignments choosing a place in nature and spending time there. I go for a long walk through my neighborhood every day, but sitting down on the ground with no agenda and being open to nature...doesn’t that sound amazing? Why don’t I do it!?!?

So instead of swirling around that drain of Why? and What’s wrong with me?, I’m practicing taking it in small steps, led by my curiosity and pleasure. Foraging fallen pine sprigs for a candle magic ritual. Observing the decaying carcass of a deer over the past several days on my walks. Letting the sunshine warm my face. It’s like a shy, tender dance that I feel increasingly up for.