A Tarot Pull About Prayer
Last night, inspired by Perdita Finn's post about prayer, I asked the Divine Mother to show me something about prayer. I pulled a 3-card tarot spread: Body, Mind and Heart. I offer my musings here. Thank you, Clark & Perdita and everyone who's been commenting on their posts, for initiating this rich conversation about prayer.
BODY
In the Body position, the Three of Cups. Each of three different cups sits on its own flat rock outcrop. Each cup is unique, situated on its own ground. Water is overflowing out of the cups, as if they are being constantly filled from a Source. The overflowing water runs off each outcropping into a river, like a waterfall. Live green vegetation spills over a couple of the rocks. A bright, pale blue sky; it’s daytime.
When we pray together, we see each other. We see each other’s water flowing, we see what’s in each person’s vessel. We tap into our Source, our Mother, and we are witnessed in the vulnerability of asking for our heart’s desire. Our individual waters flow together into one body of water.
There is power in speaking the words of our heart’s desire in front of others. The presence and prayer of others magnifies the power of our petition. There is power in gathering in devotion to the Divine Feminine. The Three of Cups is typically depicted as a card of female friendship, of joy, exuberance, celebration, and “sacred chit-chat.” This card speaks deeply to the power of community and the Divine Feminine.
MIND
In the Mind position, XVIII The Moon. When you reduce the number of this Major Arcana archetype to a single number, you get 9, The Hermit. We go from community and daytime in the previous card to solitude and nighttime in this card of the Mind. This solitude includes the Divine Mother in her full moon expression. Full moons are a time when the light of the sun (the conscious mind) illuminates the whole face of the moon (the subconscious/unconscious).
As Clark Strand said in his recent post about prayer, praying the rosary isn’t just about clearing or centering the mind, or calming our heart through mantra. To know our heart’s desire, we need to be willing to commune with the Dark—our subconscious, our dreams, fantasies, fears, intuition. I have found that praying the rosary helps me to switch off my discursive mind and allows a wellspring of images and words to arise that often surprise me. This can be a good place to listen for my heart’s desire. A wish or a fantasy that seems to arise out of nowhere, or a scene that keeps playing in my mind that contains a seed of something...what is it?
The mushrooms in the card suggest altered states of consciousness, as does the full moon itself. For thousands of years, our ancestors held ritual and ceremony at the full moon, giving names to each of the 13 moons of the year and using the power of the rising waters to perform spell work and magic. For me, this is all part of prayer, too. It’s a willingness to commune and be in conversation with beings and forces between the worlds. In my experience, it is from these non-daylight places that my strongest instincts and intuitions arise.
HEART
In the Heart position, IV The Emperor. This card typically depicts an old white man sitting on a large stone cube, looking stiff. I love this depiction, because there is beauty here. And power. I also see these red flowers as a kind of garden, albeit a bit too ordered. Just by virtue of its name, The Emperor card evokes conquest, patriarchy, violence—so many terrible things. And also: boundaries, order and form can be useful, if employed in service to, for example, our heart’s desire. The form of the rosary itself provides a sturdy and generously flexible structure for holding prayer—our own and others. Gathering with spiritual friends to pray together is a structure that gives power to our petitions and our bonds with each other.
Praying for our heart’s desire asks us to make contact with our own sovereignty. For years, I trained in a tradition that required me to have my insight tested by the teacher. Surely someone else knows better than I do! Looking back, I think these relationships with spiritual authorities were all about seeking a kind of security that can never come from outside. (“Are YOU my mommy?”) It’s taking me a long time to realize who my Mother really is, and how to work and play and communicate with Her. How to trust Her and myself with knowing my heart’s desire. No one else can know that for me. That inner power and sovereignty is a gift from Her, and from that place, to petition Her for my heart’s desire is my offering back to Her.
