Friday, December 16, 2011

Christmas Drives Me Crazy

Last week I downloaded the Goddess Tarot app for my phone. It's a beautiful set of cards that were created by Kris Waldherr (http://www.artandwords.com/). To learn more about the tarot, I've been doing a one-card reading every day. I get quiet and breath and come up with a question for the day, then tap the deck and see which card comes up. This morning the card was the eight of cups, and the question had to do with how I was going to survive Christmas.

See, in principle, Christmas is okay. I guess. I just wish that the rather significant religious holiday could be split off from the secular kerfuffle. I love the idea that the first Sunday of Advent is the start of a new liturgical year. I love the darkness and the anticipation, the rhythmic and cyclical nature of it, the way it marks time and helps you see where you are. I love lighting the candles on the wreath and John the Baptist's voice crying in the wilderness and singing the O Antiphons on the fourth Sunday of Advent and if you don't know what the hell I'm talking about, that's okay too. Trust me. It's cool.

I even love Midnight Mass, I mean, I would love it, if I weren't so damned exhausted by the shopping and the decorating and the Social Expectations. Christmas cards make me grumpy, I never get my packages in the mail on time, and the other day my eyes got all crossed because the husband put lights on the tree the wrong way. Did you know there was a right way and a wrong way to put lights on a Christmas tree? Me either, and I suspect there really isn't. If I was sane about all this. Which I'm not.

The tarot card I drew today, the eight of cups, signifies a period of change, a time to look at letting go of what's not working. On the http://www.learntarot.com/ website, the descriptors they use for this card are along the lines of focusing on personal truth, leaving the rat race, and concentrating on what's important. O-kay. Not unrelated to current events. So, if you usually get a Christmas card from me, maybe not this year. Consider it a nod towards resource management. And I promise I'll be mailing those gifts sometime soon. Before Valentines Day, anyway.
Peace,
Liv

(PS, you can get a copy of The Goddess Tarot from Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Goddess-Tarot-Deck-Kris-Waldherr/dp/1572810661
or from your phone's app store.)

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