Queen of Swords

Last night I didn't address myself to Arianrhod until after I'd gone to bed. I called out to her, acknowledging that she is largely a mystery to me, but a mystery with which I resonate and want to know more of.

I seemed to see her coming down from her star castle and hold out her hand -- and I didn't think until this morning of my experience with the pseudo-Anubis and the lesson about being cautious about touch, and I hadn't set any defenses. I took her hand, and the next thing I knew we were in what looked like the room in the green pyramid: stone walls and floor, a small table with a parchment, stairs going up in the back.

I forget the exact wording of the question I asked. It was either "What do I need to know?" or "What do I need to do?" -- and I forget the context, if it was general, or about my priestess vocation, or about how to draw closer to Her.

In any case, I saw words form on the parchment: Tell the truth.

This seemed to have several implications: telling the truth about my experiences, as a teacher; telling the truth as an ethical precept, one which can prevent me from falling into other errors since I'd be obliged to tell the truth about my misconduct; and as a Truthsayer, speaking the truth to power, who uttered my own truth without fear.

Then I saw a large, spoked wheel, like the wheel Arianrhod bears in my statue (the wheel of the year, with the holidays written around the edge), and it was entirely on fire.

"What does it mean?" I asked, and was told: The end of time and cycles. The end of the aeon.

"What am I to do?" I asked.

Take care of the child. And I saw an image of my daughter, and remembered the powerful currents that seemed to have brought her father and me together.

I thought about my fears of the future, about wanting to get and learn how to use a gun to protect us both from the anarchy I can easily imagine. Arianrhod was unimpressed. Don't you think that if that is what she needed she would have gone to someone else? I imagined being an emotional and spiritual bulwark for her and felt approval.

But I resisted the interpretation of the burning wheel as coming conflagration. Couldn't it be more personal? Maybe it was only about my own release from the material cycle? (Since LM's death, I've thought longingly of being free of the cycle of incarnation with him, of staying in the spirit world and doing our work together there.) Or maybe (as I type this entry now) it's about perhaps not putting as much energy into the calendar as I had been thinking, about finding other ways to support my path, and my daughter's?

I asked Charlie and LM for help figuring it out. They merely looked on with a certain grim quietness. I had the feeling they couldn't deny the truth of it, but weren't free to interpret for me.

Then I remembered how M_A had used tarot to help her clarify the gods' message to her after her ritual, and thought that I needed to learn how to do that, or develop some other method besides asking oakmouse to interpret for me, or ask her own contacts.

As I wrote this in my paper journal, I had the sense of Isis being near, but when I tried to go within and talk with her, I was primarily conscious of my sense of slight feverishness, and intense morning hunger, and now it's past time for me to get started on my shower, so conversation with her will have to wait.

It's also occurred to me that I need to learn to use automatic writing, since it's something that's worked for me in the past, especially with Charlie.



Note: This was going to be an "Oakmouse only" post, but going back to revise it, I saw again what I'd written about telling the truth about my experiences, and decided to leave it open. There's a time for silence and discretion, but it seems that over the past few years I've been called to be open about certain things I previously would have kept silent, things like what I see when I close my eyes. So this is a public post.